"The small company owners assessed and documented inventory, completed risk evaluation, contingency plans, Y2K tests, and remediation plans, " Maramdo said.

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"Stuyvesant was not necessarily a reflection of the bad real estate market, but rather over-ambitious assumptions, lack of risk controls and poor contingency planning, " explains Burt White, managing director of research and chief investment officer of LPL Financial, further asserting that the bottom dropped out of the market months ago.

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Paul Tucker, the Bank of England official up before MPs this week, said contingency planning has already started to deal with this risk.

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And the consequent decision-making flaws included inadequate contingency planning, insufficient information search and biased assessments of risk, cost-benefits and moral implications.

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