For those doubting Tom's on the previous thread, this is straight from the horses's mouth:

To: lucasedit@hotmail.com (Lucas Rozsa)

Subject: y2k and latvia

Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 19:30:33 -0400

Was any of your article based on a real gartner estimate, or is it all bogus? 66% sounds high.

Dear a,

Yes, the 66% estimate was taken from the 11/98 Gartner report. I can't speak for the environment you work in, but believe me brother - 66% seems dead-on for this region. I work in a consultancy here which has contact with every major organization in this country, and across the board almost NOTHING is being done.

If you need to know more about why 66% is a good estimate for this region, let me know, and I'll do my best to bury you with evidence. I know this isn't a happy story, but the facts are just not as comforting as many would have us believe.

Take care, and let me know if I can help,

Lucas

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999

Answers

Thanks for the clarification, a. I'm sure the pollys will avoid addressing the real issue here, just as they always do...

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), May 21, 1999.

From my excerpted notes on the 2/99 Senate report, Gartner defined mission-critical failure as follows: a business interruption that could affect revenue and likely affect the continued operation of that business. I don't believe that translates to a company that will definitely tank. So what Rozsa is saying is that the situation is more dire than Gartner's prediction.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), May 21, 1999.

While not taking sides on the Y2k issue, it's important to point out that the Gartner report referenced for that region 66% of companies suffering what it called "mission critical failures" and not those businesses failing per say.

It may be fair to extrapolate from their reserach that mission critical failures may/will lead to businesses failures, but the Gartner report further qualified their remarks by saying that 90% of these failures would last three days or less.

I'm not drawing any conclusions and certainly cannot speak as to the status of that region, but that is how the report is worded.

-- Hiway (Hiway441@aol.com), May 21, 1999.

There's an article about the November 1998 GartnerGroup report at this link:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/y2kcountries981228.h tml

"Y2K vs. the World"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 21, 1999.

And also

http://www.idg.net/idg_frames/english/content.cgi?vc=docid_9-67191.htm l

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

Well, folks, seems as if Lucas Rozsa decided his story needed a little "editing".

Remember, now, the my problem was with the misrepresentation of the Gartner Group ratings. See last night's thread.

Curiously, now, the relevant pieces of the article have mysteriously changed.

For reference to the original article contents, see this post, from none other than Paul Milne. I have a saved version of the whole article.

Article: (current changes in bold)

Why Two-Thirds of Baltic and Russian Businesses Are Projected to Die Within One Year (Why Two-Thirds of Baltic and Russian Businesses Might Die Within One Year)

After completing an exhaustive global study of individual countries' preparations for the Year 2000 crisis, a leading international research firm has projected that fully two thirds (66%) of Baltic and Russian businesses will fail as a result of direct and indirect consequences of Year 2000 equipment and computer failures. Although this Baltic projection was made based on research in Lithuania, few analysts dispute that Lithuania and Latvia are neck-and-neck in their efforts (or lack of efforts) to combat the crisis Y2K is becoming. (After completing an exhaustive global study of individual countries' preparations for the Year 2000 crisis, a leading international research firm has projected that fully two thirds (66%) of Baltic and Russian businesses will experience mission-critical system failures as a result of Year 2000 equipment and computer failures. Although this Baltic projection was made based on research in Lithuania, few analysts dispute that Lithuania and Latvia are neck-and-neck in their efforts (or lack of efforts) to combat the crisis Y2K is becoming.)

....

In the same research report which forecasted the collapse of two-thirds of Baltic and Russian businesses, 50% of German firms and 15% of Swedish firms are also predicted to be unable (for financial or physical reasons) to survive Y2K. This should be of significant concern to everyone in Latvia, as Germany and Sweden are among Latvia's most significant trade and political partners. (In the same research report which forecasted the mission-critical system failures in two-thirds of Baltic and Russian businesses, 50% of German firms and 15% of Swedish firms are also predicted to experience mission critical Y2K failures. This should be of significant concern to everyone in Latvia, as Germany and Sweden are among Latvia's most significant trade and political partners.)

In essence, then, Lucas Rozsa changed exactly the portions that were questioned last night, and indeed, the portions that drew so much attention in the first place. Belated thanks to him for correcting his errors.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 21, 1999.

Things are looking better and better huh Hoff?

I know this isn't a happy story, but the facts are just not as comforting as many (like Flint & Hoff) would have us believe.

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

No, 'a', but what this whole topic does demonstrate is that people like you, Milne, and others are willing to jump on virtually any bad news posted, without attempting to verify the information.

And then be completely unable to admit when shown to be wrong.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 21, 1999.

I guess that's why relying on info on the web doesn't support your cause a. You have only inconsistent, inaccurate, unsubstantiated articles from the web. Anybody can create a web site, call themselves a journalist and put up garbage and change on a continual basis. (Only Diane can separate fact from fiction on the web)

What are your real life experiences that lead you to believe (whatever that is - you've never given your opinion just quoted others) the economic conditions of Russia?

A, get a life! Your insults only show us how really stupid you are.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 21, 1999.

So,,, what is it that you do not understand about the word WHY?

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 21, 1999.

So, let me get this straight. If a "polly" supposedly "spins" a story, he is evil and is part of a vast conspiricy to withhold the truth from the general public. If a "doomer" spins a story and is caught red-handed, it is simply dismissed because it is still "bad news". Spinning a story cannot be tolerated, on both sides of the issue.

Anyway...

-- newlurker (no@no.com), May 21, 1999.

no press is objective,that's why we verify facts.outside of facts it's all spin,one way or an other so let's make up our own minds,quit trying to convert others from the oppisite camp,and collectivly try to take ourselves a little less seriously,or a lot less,depending as the case may be.sheesh.

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), May 21, 1999.

BTW, 'a', just a request that you turn off the "Notify" when starting a new thread with a bogus e-mail. The failure notices just fill up my inbox.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 21, 1999.

The issue is not the distinction between a mission critical failure and a business failure. I agreed on the previous thread that the article seemed to assume the two could be synonymous.

My beef is with people like Hoff and Flint and Maria that refuse to see the writing on the wall, even when it is explained to them by someone in the know. Here's maria:

"Russia is already toast, they are already at the bottom, Y2K will have little impact to their operations."

Here's Hoff:

"Never been to Russia, no real desire to ever go, and know nothing about their systems. Unlike others, I tend not to comment on things I know virtually nothing about."

Now we have Lucas, who according to Westergaard apparently does know his stuff, saying

"believe me brother - 66% seems dead-on for this region. I work in a consultancy here which has contact with every major organization in this country, and across the board almost NOTHING is being done. If you need to know more about why 66% is a good estimate for this region, let me know, and I'll do my best to bury you with evidence. "

And all Hoff wants to do is split hairs about whether companies can function minus their mission critical apps, and maria complaining that I insulted someone! Give me a break guys.

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

So a, once again, I ask what's your opinion. You merely quote others. Let me quote Tom from the other thread, "Nearly half the population of Latvia (46%) lives outside the seven largest cities, the smallest of which is Jekabpils, pop. 29,000 (1996). Severe disruption of the infrastructure will only make the already difficult life of the rural population marginally more difficult". The same applies to most communities in Russia... only marginally more difficult. They already have a difficult life, no heat, no food and no money. Once again, what's your conclusion?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 21, 1999.

No, 'a', the point is people twisting and distorting information to hype the problem larger than it really is.

You continue to do so even now, with your statement "whether companies can function minus their mission critical apps..". Gartner Group is giving estimates on at least one mission-critical systems failure, not complete failure of all mission-critical systems.

It is not splitting hairs when you start with "66% of the businesses will die", and go to "66% of the businesses will have a mission-critical failure", especially when even Gartner Group states that 90% of those having mission-critical failures will have them fixed within 3 days.

Yes, Y2k is a problem. It doesn't need to be hyped to some form of Armageddon. In fact, the plain truth is those hyping it do more to discourage general awareness than anything we so-called "polly's" could ever do.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 21, 1999.

No Hoff, the reason why we doomers have to be so pessimistic is precisely because people will not take action if you tell them a middle of the road scenario. "Prepare as if for a three day storm" Wha? Oh...guess I better pick up couple extra cans of Pringles after Christmas.

Maria: Worldwide depression. 10 years. Worse than the 30's.

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

66% of businesses? Which 66%? 80% of new businesses in the US fail within 5 years. Is this type of loss factored into the equation? Or is Gartner simply assuming that any business in Russia that fails during a certain period is going to be a Y2K failure?

Too much soup - not enough meat.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), May 21, 1999.

I guess that explains it, a. 10 years depression world wide is not a doomer scenario; it's an hysterical scenario.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 21, 1999.

A 10-year depression doesn't seem that hysterical to me. People have been seeing incontrovertible evidence that we've started to enter one throughout the last decade. Written whole books explaining it. The signs are apparently *always* there, if you know just where to look. The predictions haven't worked out yet, but they might.

Also, 'a' has cleared up something that's been bothering me for some time, which I appreciate. I've wondered why 'a' spends 20% of his space posting distortions and 80% of his space ridiculing those who clarify the information and dispel the distortions. And he's finally explained it to my satisfaction: A balanced presentation isn't sufficiently alarming to get people to prepare. It's necessary to lie to them for their own good. Once they're prepared, then they can relax enough to do an honest evaluation. And in most cases, the preparations won't hurt them and will simply become part of what Decker calls 'smart living.'

Perhaps, underlying this, is the idea that those who go off the deep end would do so about something or other anyway, that being their somewhat unbalanced approach to life generally? If so, why not manipulate their tendency to panic towards a good use?

That's a deep game to play, and I suspect 'a' comes across a bit too much like a bigoted fool to play it successfully. But at least his motivations are now clear.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 21, 1999.

Maria: Which do you think is more hysterical: a 10 year depression (Yourdon) or a three day storm (Koskinen)?

Flint: Distortion? Lie? I said we have to be pessimistic Flint. There is a big difference. Government and industry are distorting and lying. Therefore doomers should be pessimistic. Do you argue with that? I'm not a believer in the Infomagic scenario, and I doubt that the entire grid will fail. But it is going to be very, very bad for a very large percentage of the world's population. Many, many, many deaths because of panicking and unprepared people.

So you misunderstand, Flint. My point is not to be able to predict exactly what the consequences of the coming disaster will be. My point is to convince people that we have overwhelming evidence there is a dire need to extensively prepare for what's ahead.

But by all means continue to discredit my message, if that is your motive. I will continue to work supporting this country's systems that are providing your very freedom and well being, and you can get on with building electric mouse traps or whatever it is that you do.

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

'a':

I agree with you that the evidence overwhelmingly argues that preparation is indicated. I agree that there will be problems (but my crystal ball can't predict them in detail any better than yours). I even agree that many who don't prepare will wish they had, very hard, and it won't help them after it's too late.

However, (you knew that was coming, I know), I do NOT believe that the evidence needs to be exaggerated for effect. I think that the evidence, properly understood and adjusted for likely biases, stands on its own merits. With very few exceptions (yes, there are some, and I discount them also) the so-called optimists on this forum are those who are trying to decipher what each bit of evidence really *means*, and delimit what it doesn't mean.

We could use your help here. You don't need to try to mock those who do the real digging and discover those cases where the 'evidence' doesn't hold water. If you want people to really understand what faces them, ridiculing individuals doesn't forward your cause. Crossposting posts from known bananas only undermines your credibility.

If the preponderance of all available information suggests what you call a "middle of the road" outcome, why not spend your efforts pointing out that the middle of the road is quite different from what we know today, and what sorts of preparations are most appropriate for that outcome?

Not all code uses dates, not all date usage is wrong, not all wrong date usage has been missed by the hundreds of billions spent fixing them, and not all missed wrong date usage is fatal. I don't believe (my opinion only, of course) that disagree with this. I'd suggest that you examine *all* evidence with the same disbelief that you appear to apply *only* to good news, and that you stop letting Milne do your thinking (sic) for you. Make a contribution.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 21, 1999.

Now see what you've done? I'm in bleeding heart mode.

A. I did not say it was going to be middle of the road. It may be. It may be Infomagic.

B. My contribution here is to raise the alarm level. Because it almost certainly is going to be middle of the road or worse. I am past the stage of pontificating about which things will absolutely fail and how. That's a waste of time. If I see evidence that there is an unacceptable risk of it failing, I start crowing. Enough things are going to fail to warrant emergency measures be put in place right now. In fact, its probably too late. But that would spoil all the fun everyone's having, getting rich in the stock market and watching all those cool shows on the boob tube. We, both in this country and abroad, have pissed away the valuable head start we could have used had the Powers That Be been truthful and admitted that pessimists like Yourdon, North, Milne, and even Infomagic, have a good point about certain aspects of the problem.

C. You are entitled to your opinion of who is "bananas" and who is not. IMO, Hamasaki, Yourdon, and Milne are not bananas. IMO, Steven Poole is bananas. In fact Poole may even be a coconut, I'm not quite sure.

D. I understand your concern for objectivity. "I feel your pain." But as long as there are Norms, Hoffs, marias, and Y2K pros out there, I will continue to post and belabor the worst case scenarios.

F. I do not mean to offend anyone, at least anyone who does not deserve it. Lighten up man, you make me out to be as despicable as your nemesi Paul and CPR. I have been a little hard on Decker, I guess, but I just don't take well to being called boorish. :) If someone calls me a fool, I will listen to their argument. If the shoe fits, maybe I'll wear it.

G. The whole point of this thread is that an "insider" published a story on Westergaard that said the Baltic region was in extremely poor shape and that 66% of the businesses were in danger of failing. And the pollys called it "fiction". It's not fiction, and I have tried to prove that. To my satisfaction, I have. If you like, I'll poll Lucas for further evidence.

-- a (a@a.a), May 21, 1999.

'a':

Yes, a lot of this must necessarily be opinion. But not all opinions are created equal. I tend to give a *lot* more credence to opinions backed by relevant information and real-life experience, than I do to wild unsupported speculations.

You've mentioned names here, and these are good illustrations, all of them. At the top of my list of credibility are Yourdon and Hoffmeister. Both cite real evidence, both think clearly (my opinion), and both have been there and done that. They don't agree, but both have valuable things to say and I think they're worth listening to. Neither one ever gabbles mindlessly.

To me, North is a spin doctor, and requires a lot of salt. He finds an article saying (for example) DoD has found that some specific models of a certain class of GPS receivers need upgrades, and titles his spin "DOD must replace ALL GPS receivers." Don't you notice this? Why do you never mention it? North is highly selective in his material, only presents the most widely-publicized good news, and mocks it because it doesn't fulfill his wishes. North must be assessed carefully.

Hamasaki is entertaining. His perspective is limited, but he knows where a few bodies are buried and extrapolates pretty well from there. I'm not a fan of his "trust me, but forget about verifying" approach, but I believe him that some things will fall over and can't be propped up quickly enough. He also comes out and says that other things are in good shape. He's on the fence, as I think he should be.

Infomagic, to me, lacks any realistic understanding of how complex adaptive systems work. Whenever I read Infomagic, I'm reminded of the old saw that if we'd had computers in 1890, they'd have predicted that we'd all be under 20 feet of horseshit by now. He's the Thomas Malthus of doomists -- his predictions have all been well argued and all been *way* wrong. He hasn't yet learned that linear regressions are poor predictors of adaptive system dynamics.

Poole and CPR are borderline at best. Neither seems to realize that there are forces and trends beyond their understanding, and both extrapolate (as does North) from carefully selected examples that suit their purposes. CPR seems to have gone around the bend lately, and I've tuned him out. Poole is still useful within the relatively narrow scope of his expertise. His efforts to reach beyond that scope strike me as unrealistic.

Norm does no more than echo articles available elsewhere, and wastes bandwidth (nowhere NEAR as much as Kevin and Diane, though). He'd have much more to offer, I think, if he provided a link and a comment, rather than just a regurgitation. Yeah, we can read that stuff. Now, what does it *mean*?

Maria and y2k pro are mostly non-contributors, though Maria is improving. They are much like you in some ways. They are owls hooting when we wander into the wrong part of the forest. The key difference is they hoot at the point being missed, rather than attacking whoever missed the point (most of the time).

Milne is a special case, whom I classify under organic brain damage. He's an excellent illustration of that most delicious irony of stupidity -- he's too dumb to realize it. How you can take anyone seriously who's been wrong about everything his entire life, has NO relevant experience, and who can invariably extract ONLY the pepper from the stew and claim the stew is 100% pepper, is beyond me.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 21, 1999.

If Milne turns out to be wrong, we can take turns at his dunking booth. And if he's right?

-- a (a@a.a), May 22, 1999.

Maria,

If you could talk to someone in August 1929 and tell them what the state of the U.S. economy would be in 1932 and 1932, they would have said it sounded like a "hysterical scenario"--but it happened.

Is there anyone who disputes that what we have right now is a bubble economy? The bubble almost burst in September of 1998. It still could happen. It concerns me that we're going into Y2K with the U.S. public up to its neck in debt and exceptionally high P/E ratios in the stock market.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 22, 1999.