North predicts bank runs beginning in the second half of 1999, triggered first by Japan and Canada rolling into fiscal year 2000 on April 1. He warns that the interconnected nature of modern banking means even compliant institutions will be reinfected by non-compliant data from partner systems. The FAA's outdated routing computers face shutdown, and the electrical power grid, dependent on computerized coal shipments by non-compliant railroads, could experience prolonged blackouts.
Drawing from his own preparations on 60 acres with natural gas wells and generators, North advises listeners to stockpile food, secure water sources independent of electrical pumps, and keep cash in small bills. He argues the collapse of electronic payment systems would bring the modern division of labor to a halt, potentially lasting years if the power grid fails beyond 60 days.
Key Moments
Greenspan admits he can't read his own old code: North recounts Senator Bennett asking Alan Greenspan about the year-2000 problem. Greenspan reminisces about his 1960s programming days, says he was so proud when his team could save a little memory, and then concedes he can't recognize his own code today and there was no documentation - making the Y2K fix far harder than the public realizes.
April 1, 1999 fiscal-year rollover triggers the first bank run: North forecasts that the first global Y2K trigger event hits April 1, 1999 - when Japan, Canada, and 44 U.S. states roll into fiscal year 2000 and mainframes register the date as 1900. He predicts Japanese housewives recall capital from the U.S., bank runs begin in Japan first, and the public realizes the background noise about Y2K is real.
The big one: power grid blackouts in winter 2000: North identifies the power grid as the catastrophic failure mode. Embedded chips and shared data exchanges between utilities mean a single non-compliant system reinfects compliant ones. If the grid goes down for more than 60 days he doesn't believe it comes back up, because regional black-start recovery requires power from neighbors who are all hit the same day.
No elections in 2000, all national governments collapse: North goes on the record: there will be no elections in the year 2000 because if Washington can't collect taxes and can't distribute Social Security or Medicare, there is no point. He extends the claim to every national government on Earth. The Department of Defense as of April 28th has not even completed inventory of its 1.5 million computers and 28,000 systems.
January 3, 2000: Fortune 500 mainframes wake up in 1900: North walks through the first business Monday of 2000. Companies return to mainframes that won't boot, throw out garbage data, or believe the year is 1900. With 13,000 U.S. banks none of them compliant and trillions of dollars exchanged daily over non-compliant wire systems, a single tainted data import reinfects every compliant counterparty - what he calls the collapse of the modern division of labor.