RE: [Fwd: Blind Man's Bluff in the Year 2000]

["Green, TuJana" <TuJana.Green@mci.com>]

Who in the "h_ _ _ _" believes the bulk of "crap" like this?  Yes, there
will be some aftermath in some areas of society due to the prior lack of
awareness regarding the year 2000 and computer mainframes and so forth, but
for the most part there exist some really intelligent computer and technical
"gurus" in this world today that are to eager to assist with issues as such.
As a matter of fact, there are a few thousand of us in NBS who are in the
"technical" arena that could without a doubt tear holes in some of the
"negative" propaganda that was expressed in the forwarded literature.  But,
who has the energy to waste.  Please do not forward this "negativity" on the
"blkdiamond@nbs.org" list.  As far as I have noticed, the NBS promotes
positivity in an upwardly challenging environment and atmosphere dedicated
to the enrichment of African Americans in a culture of diversity and
prosperity, in many different areas.  So, to me, you need to check out your
B.S. (Belief System) and redirect your energies.



> ----------
> From: 	dorisdavis@earthlink.net[SMTP:dorisdavis@earthlink.net]
> Reply To: 	dorisdavis@earthlink.net
> Sent: 	Saturday, June 13, 1998 10:42 PM
> To: 	blkdiamond@nbs.org
> Subject: 	[Fwd: Blind Man's Bluff in the Year 2000]
> 
> Subject: Blind Man's Bluff in the Year 2000
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:50:52 -0400
> From: info@garynorth.com
> To: dorisdavis@earthlink.net
> 
>            BLIND MAN'S BLUFF IN THE YEAR 2000
> 
>       What are you going to be doing for a living in the
> year 2001?  Unless you're a fix-it man living in a small
> town, you won't be doing what you do today.  If you make
> your living in financial services, you will surely be doing
> something else.  If you're a journalist, you will be in a
> new profession.  But what?  What other useful service can
> you provide?  You have very little time to make the switch.
> 
>      Let me show you why.
> 
>      We live in a world that depends on a high division of
> labor.  That world has less than three years to go.  In one
> gigantic collapse, the division of labor will implode.
> This implosion will begin in 1999.  It will accelerate in
> 2000 and thereafter.  Those who work in highly specialized
> fields will find little or no demand for their skills, in
> the face of an enormous supply of desperate, low-wage
> competition.  Any job classification that did not exist in
> 1945 will probably not have a lot of demand in 2001, with
> one exception: computer software programming.
> 
>       The June 2 issue of Newsweek ran a front-cover story
> on the looming computer crisis of the Year 2000 -- called
> y2k (Year 2 K -- shorthand for a thousand).  In the week it
> the article appeared (late May), the Dow Jones Industrial
> Average set a record new high.  (It was beaten a week
> later.)  If investors believed the information reported in
> the Newsweek article, the world's stock markets would have
> collapsed.  Clearly, people don't believe it.  That's why a
> small handful of people can get out now -- out of the stock
> market, the bond market, and any city over 25,000.
> 
>       Not everyone can get out at the top of a bull market.
> This includes the "bull market" known as modern industrial
> society.  Pull the plug on the local power utility for 30
> days, and every city on earth becomes unlivable.  What if
> the plug gets pulled for five years?
> 
>       How do you rebuild the shattered economy if the
> computers go down, taking public utilities with them?
> Without electricity, you can't run the computers.  Without
> computers, you can't fix computers.  How can you assemble
> teams of programmers to fix the mess?  More to the point,
> how do you pay them if the banks are empty?
> 
>       Chase Manhattan Bank has 200 million lines of code to
> check and then repair.  Citicorp has 400 million lines.
> All big banks are similarly afflicted.  And even if this
> could be fixed, bank by bank, there is no universal repair
> standard.  Thus, the computers, even if fixed (highly
> doubtful) will not work together after the individual
> repairs.  A noncompliant bank's data will then make every
> compliant bank noncompliant.  Thus, the world banking
> system will crash in 2000.  When the public figures this
> out in 1999, the bank runs will begin.
> 
>       You probably will not have your present job in 2001.
> 
>                    "It Just Can't Be True!"
> 
>       You don't believe me, of course.  Not yet.  But I
> havepublished the evidence on this Web site.  You can
> verifywhat I'm saying.  But you still won't believe it.
> Why not? Because it's too painful.  In their book, The
> Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg make a very
> important observation:
> 
>       A recent psychological study disguised as a
>       public opinion poll showed that members of
>       individual occupational groups were almost
>       uniformly unwilling to accept any conclusion that
>       implied a loss of income for them, no matter how
>       airtight the logic supporting it.  Given
>       increased specialization, most of the
>       interpretive information about most specialized
>       occupational groups is designed to cater to the
>       interests of the groups themselves.  They have
>       little interest in views that might be impolite,
>       unprofitable, or politically incorrect (p. 339).
> 
>       My views are all three: impolite, unprofitable, and
> politically incorrect.  Impolite, because I am saying this:
> (1) those advising you are as blind as an eighth-century
> Israelite king; (2) they have given you information that
> will prove to be wildly unprofitable; (3) all the hype
> about your getting rich -- the world's getting rich -- is a
> clap-trap.  We are heading for a disaster greater than
> anything the world has experienced since the bubonic plague
> of the mid-14th century.
> 
>       Because the year 2000 begins on a Saturday, millions
> of victims will not be aware of their dilemma until the
> following Monday or Tuesday.  They will pay no attention to
> advance warnings, such as this one, that they are at risk.
> 
>       As you read this report, I want you to think to
> yourself: "How will this affect me?  Is my business at
> risk?  Is my income at risk?  What should I do?"  I also
> want you to visit my Web site, http://www.garynorth.com and
> examine the accumulating evidence, week by week.
> 
>                  The Origin of the Problem
> 
>       Here is the problem.  Over three decades ago,
> computer programmers who wrote mainframe computer software
> saved disk space -- in those days, very valuable space --
> by designating year codes as two-digit entries: 67 instead
> of 1967, 78 instead of 1978, etc.  Back then, saving this
> seemingly minuscule amount of disk space seemed like an
> economically wise decision.  This may prove to be the most
> expensive forecasting error since Noah's flood.
> 
>       What the programmers ignored for three decades is
> this: in the year 2000, the two digits will be 00.  The
> computer will sit there, looking for a year.  At midnight,
> January 1, 2000, every mainframe computer using unrevised
> software dies.  If old acquaintances are in the computer,
> they will indeed be forgot.
> 
>       Programmers who recognized the implications of this
> change did not care.  They assumed that their software
> would be updated by year 2000.  That assumption now
> threatens every piece of custom software sitting on every
> mainframe computer, unless the owner of the computer has
> had the code rewritten.  In some cases, this involves
> coordinating half a billion million lines of code.
> (Example: AT&T)  One error on one line can shut down the
> whole system, the way that America Online was shut down for
> a day in 1996 because of a one-digit error.
> 
>       The handful of reporters who have investigated this
> problem have met a wall of indifference.  "We're all using
> microcomputers now."  "This is a problem only for a few
> companies that are still using mainframes."  "Cheap
> solutions will appear as soon as there is demand."  "The
> software will be updated soon, and I'll buy it then."  "If
> this were a serious problem, we'd have heard about it."
> Yet this last response is given to someone -- a reporter --
> who is trying to tell people about the problem.
> 
>       I first read about this problem years ago in a book
> by the pseudonymous author, Robert X. Cringely: Accidental
> Empires.  It is not as though the computer industry has
> been unaware of it.  Only a few weeks ago, I read a Wall
> Street Journal column on computers that mentioned it.  The
> writer wrote that his editor is getting tired of having him
> mention it.  This is typical.  The general public hasn't
> heard about it, yet editors are already tired of hearing
> about it.  "It's old news."  Well, it's new news for most
> people.
> 
>       What does it matter, really?  We use microcomputers.
> Microsoft has solved the Year 2000 problem, we assume.  So
> have most software companies.  Everyone uses desktop
> computers or, at the largest, minicomputers, right?  Wrong.
> 
>       Governments Rely on Aging Mainframes and Software
> 
>       On September 24, 1996, Congressman Stephen Horn, who
> is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Management,
> Information, and Technology, submitted to the full
> committee a report on the Year 2000 problem.  The
> Subcommittee held hearings on April 16.  (Just one day of
> hearings.  This indicates the degree of concern that the
> government has.)  He said that these hearings revealed "a
> serious lack of awareness of the problem on the part of a
> great number of people in business and government.  Even
> more alarming was the cost estimate reported to the
> Subcommittee to remedy the problem, which was said to be
> $30 billion for the Federal Government alone."  Then he
> announced:
> 
>       Without greater urgency, those agencies risk
>       being unable to provide services or perform
>       functions that they are charged by law with
>       performing.  Senior agency management officials
>       must take aggressive action if these problems are
>       to be avoided.
> 
>       Yet despite Horn's valid warning, nothing visible is
> happening.  He knows this.  These agencies must shift
> hundreds of millions of dollars from their existing budgets
> to hire outside programmers to rewrite the code that runs
> these agencies.  This isn't being done.  More to the point,
> the longer they delay, the worse the problem gets.  You
> can't just go out and hire programmers who are familiar
> with the code.  As businesses find out what threatens them,
> the demand for these highly specialized services will soar.
> (If businessmen don't figure this out in time, payment will
> come due in January of 2000.)
> 
>       The Subcommittee's report warns: "This issue may
> cause banks, securities firms and insurance companies to
> ascertain whether the companies they finance or insure are
> year 2000 compliant before making investment decisions."
> It also says that companies will start demanding
> contractual warranties guaranteeing against Year 2000
> breakdowns.
> 
>       A memorandum from the Library of Congress Research
> Service (CRS) has warned that "it may be too late to
> correct all of the nation's systems."  So, the question
> arises: Which systems will survive and which ones won't?
> Here are some problem areas, according to CRS:
> 
>             Miscalculation by the Social Security
>             Administration of the ages of citizens,
>             causing payments to be sent to people
>             who are not eligible for benefits while
>             ending or not beginning payments to
>             those who are eligible;
> 
>             Miscalculation by the Internal Revenue
>             Service of the standard deduction on
>             income tax returns for persons over age
>             65, causing incorrect records of
>             revenues and payments due;
> 
>             Malfunctioning of certain Defense
>             Department weapon systems;
> 
>             Erroneous flight schedules generated by
>             the Federal Aviation Administration's
>             air traffic controllers;
> 
>             State and local computer systems
>             becoming corrupted with false records,
>             causing errors in income and property
>             tax records, payroll, retirement
>             systems, motor vehicle registrations,
>             utilities regulations, and a breakdown
>             of some public transportation systems.
> 
>       I don't think these are small issues.  They will
> probably start receiving media attention when it is so late
> in the process that there will be massive foul-ups in
> coordinating the revisions.
> 
>       Notice, the biggest one is missing: an international
> bank run, as depositors demand cash.  From that day on, all
> exchanges will be local: the collapse of the division of
> labor.
> 
>       When the computers' clocks think it's 1900, it soon
> will be.
> 
>       I realize that there has been tremendous progress in
> microcomputer power, but does anyone really think that all
> of the Federal government's forms -- not an infinite
> number, but approaching infinity as a limit -- can be put
> on three dozen Compaq desktop computers and run with, say,
> Lotus Approach or Microsoft Access?  And even if they
> could, how would you re-train all of the bureaucrats to use
> the new systems?  How fast will they learn?  How fast do
> bureaucracies adapt?  The Subcommittee's report warns:
> 
>       The clock is ticking and most Federal agencies
>       have not inventoried their major systems in order
>       to detect where the problem lies within and among
>       each Federal department, field office and
>       division.  The date for completion of this
>       project cannot slip.
> 
>       By "cannot," the Subcommittee's report-writer meant
> "must not."  The date can surely be allowed to slip.  It
> almost certainly will be allowed to slip.
> 
>       Additionally, the task may be more difficult for
>       the public sector, where systems have been in use
>       for decades, may lack software documentation and
>       therefore increase the time it takes from the
>       inventory phase to solution.
> 
>       Did you get that?  The software code's records are
> gone!  Remember also that we're not just talking about the
> United States government.  We're talking about every
> government -- national, state, and local -- anywhere on
> earth that has its data stored on an unrevised mainframe
> computer system or which relies on any third-party computer
> service that uses uncorrected software.
> 
>       As the year 2000 approaches, word will slowly begin
> to spread: "After the three-day weekend that will
> inaugurate the year 2000, there is going to be a hangover
> the likes of which we have never seen before."  For some,
> it will be a time of celebration.  For others, it will be
> the end of their dreams.  It depends on whether they are
> being squeezed by the government or dependent on it.
> 
>       But it's not just government that is at risk.  It's
> private industry.
> 
>                     Kiss Medicare Goodbye
> 
>       Some 38 million people will receive Medicare payments
> in 1997.  In 2000, an estimated one billion claims will be
> filed, totalling over $288 billion.  This, according to a
> May 16, 1997 report of the General Accounting Office (GAO):
> "Medicare Transaction System."
> 
>       Problem: the Medicare system won't make it through
> 2000.  The same GAO report shows why.  Medicare claims are
> not actually administered by Medicare.  It's administered
> by 70 private agencies.  These agencies have been informed
> that their contracts will not be renewed in 2000.
> 
>       The agency that officially supervises Medicare has
> plans for one huge computer system that will bring the
> program in-house.  It is the same dream that motivated the
> Internal Revenue Service for the past 11 years.  The IRS
> announced earlier this year that after 11 years and $4
> billion, the attempt had failed.
> 
>       Medicare now knows that it has a problem with its
> computers.  They are not Year 2000-compliant.  So, to make
> sure that they will be compliant, Medicare has issued an
> appeal to the 70 newly canned companies: please fix the
> year 2000 problem for us before you leave.  As the GAO
> report puts it, "contractors may not have a particularly
> high incentive to properly make these conversions. . . ."
> 
>       What if the system fails?  (What if?  Are they
> kidding?  When!)  The report says that the Health Care
> Financing Administration (HCFA), which is responsible for
> running Medicare, has not made contingency plans.  "HCFA
> officials are relying on the contractors to identify and
> complete the necessary work in time to avoid problems.  Yet
> the . . . . contractors not only have not developed
> contingency plans, they have said that they do not intend
> to do so because they believe that this is HCFA's
> responsibility."
> 
>                    Kiss the IRS Goodbye
> 
>       The IRS has 100 million lines of code.  Their code is
> not year 2000-compliant.  After the failure of the 11-year
> project to upgrade the system, Chief Information Officer
> Arthur Gross announced that getting the IRS year 2000-
> compliant is the "highest priority for the IRS."  The IRS
> has nearly 50,000 code applications to coordinate and
> correct. This task will require the IRS to move 300 full-
> time computer programmers to the new project.  (Reported in
> "TechWeb," April 21, 1997).
> 
>       For comparison purposes, consider the fact that the
> Social Security Administration began working on its year
> 2000 repair in 1991.  Social Security has 30 million lines
> of code.  By June, 1996, the SSA's 400 programmers had
> fixed 6 million lines.
> 
>       What if the IRS isn't technically equipped to pursue
> tax evaders after December 31, 1999?  What if the IRS
> computer system isn't fully integrated with all of its
> branch offices?  What if the system's massive quantities of
> forms are not stored in a computer system that is Year
> 2000-compliant?  More to the point, what if 20% of
> America's taxpayers believe that the IRS can't get them if
> they fail to file a return?
> 
>       In 1999, the IRS may find a drop in compliance from
> self-employed people.  If the IRS can't prosecute these
> people after 1999, there will be a defection of compliance
> by the self-employed.  When word spreads to the general
> public, there will be a hue and cry -- maybe at first
> against the evaders, but then against employers who are
> sending in employees' money when self-employed people are
> escaping.  Meanwhile, cash-only, self-employed businesses
> will begin to lure business away from tax-compliant
> businesses by offering big discounts.
> 
>       This will start happening all over the world.  Once
> it begins, it will not easily be reversed.  The tax system
> rests on this faith: (1) the government will pay us what it
> owes us; (2) the government can get us if we stop paying.
> Both aspects of this faith will be called into question in
> the year 2000 if the governments' computers are not in
> compliance.
> 
>       Big Brother is no more powerful than his software.
> On January 1, 2000, this strength may fall to zero.
> Actually, double zero.
> 
>       If the IRS cannot collect taxes, and if all the other
> mainframe computer-dependent tax collection agencies on
> earth do not fix this, what will happen to the government
> debt markets worldwide?  To interest rates?  To the
> government-guaranteed mortgage market?
> 
>       Kiss them all goodbye.
> 
>                      "No Problem!  Trust me!"
> 
>       There are a few conservative financial newsletter
> writers who have heard about y2k.  They deny its economic
> relevance.  A shut-down of all mainframe computers would
> mean that newsletter writers will be out of business after
> 1999 -- a thought too terrifying for them.  So, they brush
> y2k aside with some version of this rebuttal: "Of course,
> the government may not get its computers fixed."  This is
> supposed to calm you.  It should terrify you.  Ask
> yourself:
> 
>             What happens to T-bills and T-bonds if the
>       IRS computer breaks down and a tax revolt spreads
>       because taxpayers know the IRS will never find
>       them, and that if they pay their taxes, they
>       won't get their refunds?
> 
>             What happens to money market funds and bond
>       funds that invest heavily in government debt when
>       investors realize that if the IRS can't collect
>       taxes, the government will default on its debt?
> 
>             What happens to the banks when depositors
>       figure out that the FDIC is bankrupt and that
>       nobody insures their accounts any more?
> 
>             What happens to your job when the banks
>       close because of bank runs, and no business can
>       borrow money or even write a check to its
>       employees?
> 
>             What happens to the delivery of food into
>       cities when money fails because the banks are
>       busted?
> 
>             What happens to the delivery of public
>       utilities when money fails because the banks are
>       busted?
> 
>             What happens to your retirement fund when
>       ERISA, the government pension guarantee program,
>       goes bankrupt?
> 
>            What happens to the 38 million people in
>      the U.S. who are dependent on Medicare?
> 
>           What happens to 42 million people on Social
>      Security?
> 
>             What happens to every state government?
> 
>             What happens to crime rates when the state
>       cannot imprison violent criminals and may have to
>       release those who are locked up because they
>       can't be fed?
> 
>             What happens to the world economy when this
>       scenario is multiplied across every government?
> 
>       Kiss you job goodbye.  Especially if you're a
> journalist.  I know.  I am one.  I figure I'll be out of
> work -- forced retirement -- January 1, 2000.  I'm making
> plans to be in small-scale agriculture.  I'm out of debt.
> 
>       What about you?
> 
>                      Psychological Deferral
> 
>       Those in authority prefer to defer thinking about
> this.  They are playing Scarlett O'Hara: "I'll think about
> it tomorrow," followed by, "Well, fiddle dee-dee."
> Deferral is a normal response to distant problems.  The
> question is: What can we afford to defer?  People defer
> making this assessment.  The fact that you have not read
> much about this looming problem doesn't mean that it isn't
> a problem.  If your employer has not actively sought
> solutions to this problem, your firm had better not use
> mainframe computers or be dependent on suppliers that rely
> on mainframe computers.
> 
>       Everyone assumes that someone else is doing something
> to solve these problems.  "It's being taken care of."  The
> problem here is the passive voice.  Who, exactly, is taking
> care of it?  What, exactly, is this person doing?  Is he on
> schedule?  How do you know for sure?  Are you taking his
> word for it?  Anyone who takes the word of a computer
> programmer that he is on schedule is a person of very great
> faith.  If the programmer says "Sorry, I didn't make it" on
> December 31, 1999, you're dead in the water.  Meanwhile, he
> moves on.
> 
>               What You Should Do, Beginning Today
> 
>       First, you investigate whether what I'm saying is
> true.
> 
>       Second, think through what happens to you if the
> local power company and the local water and sewage company
> shut down in your city for six months.  "Who ya gonna
> call?"  Especially if your phone is dead?  And if you do
> get through, how ya gonna pay if your local bank is
> defunct?
> 
>       Third, here is my personal strategy.  I have adopted
> a question:
> 
>         "Can I prove on paper that he owes it to me?"
> 
>       I want hard copy print-outs of everything I do with
> the government.  If you are owed money from Social
> Security, and you're dependent on this income, contact the
> Social Security Administration every year and get a letter
> telling you what you're owed.  This is true of every
> government pension system.
> 
>       Do you have a copy of your birth certificate?  If
> not, write to your place of birth and get it.  Even if that
> community has not computerized the records, do it now.
> Even if it keeps the records in a desktop, do it.  If word
> starts to spread, they may be buried in requests in 1999.
> You want your paperwork completed before word gets out.
> 
>       Do you have a copy of your college transcripts?  If
> not, get it.  The same goes for your work record history.
> Assume that your records are in some company's mainframe
> computer.  Assume also that the company has failed to
> update the software.
> 
>       Do you have a print-out of all of your insurance
> records?  Would they stand up in court?  If not, get what
> you need, now.
> 
>       Have you spoken with your local insurance agent?  Is
> he fully aware of the problem?  Ask him straight out if he
> has scheduled an update of his software if he relies on
> vendor-supplied software.  He deserves to know what is
> coming.  So do you.  (If you want to photocopy this issue
> to send him, go ahead.)
> 
>       Think through this problem in advance, before it gets
> out and creates a banking panic, all over the world.  This
> story will get out eventually.  In 1999, when reporters are
> running around looking for sensational Year 2000-third
> millennium stories, this one will at last surface.  It
> already has: in Newsweek.  At that point, every government
> bureaucrat whose agency is at risk will start playing the
> "No problem" game.  "It's being taken care of."  The
> bureaucrat's number-one rule is to evade responsibility.
> No one with any authority is going to admit that his
> malfeasance in office is going to create a disaster on Jan.
> 1, 2000.  The basic response will be this: "There's no
> problem here, and furthermore, I'm not responsible when
> everything collapses next year!"
> 
>       Keep visiting my Web site for updated information:
> 
>                     http://www.garynorth.com
> 
>       E-mail this report to anyone you care about.
> 
> -
> This is the blkdiamond@nbs.org mailing list.  To unsubscribe, send
> email to majordomo@nbs.org and in the body of the message put
> "unsubscribe blkdiamond."  For more info on the NBS, see
> http://www.nbs.org/ .
> 
-
This is the blkdiamond@nbs.org mailing list.  To unsubscribe, send
email to majordomo@nbs.org and in the body of the message put
"unsubscribe blkdiamond."  For more info on the NBS, see
http://www.nbs.org/ .