Where's The Magic Wand?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Has anyone read this article yet?

http://guide-p.infoseek.com/Content?arn=a0238LBY555reulb-19980812&col=NX

Listen to these claims!

***BEGIN QUOTE***

In key financial centres Hong Kong and Tokyo, just about half of financial institutions have completed their Y2K compliance.

A survey by the Bank of Japan found 48 percent of Japan's banks and brokerage firms prepared with compliance for their core accounting systems that control deposits and loans.

More than 45 percent of Hong Kong banks and other financial institutions have completed their bug fixes.

***END QUOTE***

What the hell is wrong with us lazy Americans?!

Worst recession since WW2, banks sitting on over a half trillion dollars in bad loans, the yen in freefall, and almost half of Japan's banks are DONE with remediation of their mission-critical systems?

Hong Kong is running a close second in fixing their financial institutions?

What's going on here? Whoever's in charge of Y2K remediation in Japan and Hong Kong had better come to the US and become instant multi-billionaires!

I guess the key word in the quote is "survey". In the US at least the banks will tell you that they're hard at work, fixing the problem. Perhaps in Asia, the banks are so far behind that they figure "Hey - we're never going to make it anyway, why not just tell everybody we're done!"

They can't really think that US and other foreign financial interests are going to take them seriously - can they?

-- PMB (paul_bednarek@quantumdata.com), August 13, 1998

Answers

Bear in mind the cultural aversion to failure in Japan. Admitting failure there means that you should do the 'honorable' thing, kill yourself. Also, oriental culture is very non-confrontational, they as a people do not like to imply anything that would cause others to lose 'face'. Perhaps this is the reason why there so few failures of code repair in the orient.

I don't beleive too many here take them on their word, but who over there would be first to point their finger and say LIES, FAILURE? Or as Ross Perot used to say about the US budget deficit "It's like that crazy aunt down in the basement that nobody talks about, see?"

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), August 14, 1998.


I'll assume your post is tongue-in-cheek. If not, it should be. :)

Blessings!

http://www.lifetel.com/y2k2000.htm

-- Pastor Chris (pastorchris@lifetel.com), August 14, 1998.


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