SellHigh.Com/BuyLow.Com Personal & Group 
Private Financial & Business Publishing

y2k - the year 2000 problem?
(Bill Clinton, taxpayers, and consumers are all ready paying the costs)

Since the price tag for y2k has grown quite large, it might be time to dispel a couple myths.

1) The number one myth is that y2k won't effect you. It already is. Every US taxpayer has spent money on just evaluating the problem. For instance, President Clinton just tried to get 3.3 billion in "emergency funds" for y2k... the IRS has wasted over 17 million dollars trying to figure out what to do with their systems, etc.

The Clinton administration's September 30 "target date" (a "goal," not a "deadline," says an administration official) for renovating federal agency computer systems is now past, and many systems are still not renovated. The date was set in November 1997 in an Office of Management and Budget quarterly report. Of the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, State, and Transportation, and the Agency for International Development -- the agencies placed in "Tier 1" because they were furthest behind last November -- most did not meet the "target date."
- Sanger's Review of the Millennium

And, the USA is not alone:

Yesterday [Friday], the RCMP, the national police force of Canada, announced that all RCMP leaves and vacations have been cancelled for the four months from December, 1999 to something like April, 2000 - so that all Mounties can be available for duty in case of a Y2k-related crisis.
- Vancouver Sun, Weekend Ed.

2) Another popular myth -- the problem has to do with an individual's personal computer. This may or may not be true, but it is a fairly irrelevant piece of the puzzle. The two largest problems experts seem to agree on our:

3) Third on the myth list is that the problem is isolated to Jan. 1, 2000. As you can see, we've already started paying for it. And, for many reasons, we shall continue to pay for it well past the year 2000... year 2001 problems, litigation, and so on.

IBM (the mfr of one of the FAA's keystone air traffic systems) and the FAA have both acknowledged that the date rollover point problem in one of the FAA's primary air traffic systems is the year 2007 - which is the year in which that system's arbitrarily designated binary dating codes lapses.
- Mark Hammel, OPSEC


Whether you are the business paying the costs directly, or the individual consumer that these costs get passed on to, the Lyon advises that you take y2k into every financial decision.


Click Back to the Main Index


. The Philadelphia Spirit Experiment Publishing Company
These graphics, images, text copy, sights or sounds may not be used without the expressed written consent of the Glistening Web Communications Corporation.

These private business publications are made possible, in part, by the support of Internet businesses such as:

Try Me?