Year 2000 Expert Posts $10,000 Reward

Posted on January 2, 1998

During the debut of his new radio talk show, "The Y2K Advisor" Tony Keyes issued a challenge to his audience.

Keyes, author of The Year 2000 Computer Crisis, An Investor's Survival Guide offered a reward of $10,000 to the first person who can successfully debunk the Year 2000 Computer Problem. Keyes said, "I want to dispel once and for all the myth that the century date change will be a non-problem for society. We have wasted far too much time debating whether or not Y2K is just market hype. I want to go on record, putting my money where my mouth is. We are now faced with an inevitable socioeconomic disaster, which will be felt around the world."

Keyes and his co-host Ed Meagher have been trying to raise awareness, over the past year and a half, through their original, twice weekly radio program, which airs on WBZS AM730 in Washington, D.C. Their debut on WALE AM990 represents a significant expansion of their listening audience, to include all of New England. Keyes' book, The Year 2000 Computer Crisis, An Investor's Survival Guide, predicts a socioeconomic catastrophe at the close of the century. "The American people have been let down by their government, neglected by their financial institutions and lied to by the companies in which they have invested," Keyes said during the inaugural broadcast.

Keyes isn't the only financial analyst raising the alarm, he and Dr. Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, testified on Capital Hill the same day last month. During his testimony, Yardeni told the Senate Banking Committee, "the Year 2000 problem is a very serious threat to the global economy. If the supply of information is disrupted, many economic activities will be impaired, if not entirely halted."