Your Personal Y2K Repair Bill: $365

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http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/11/18/33556

Your Personal Y2K Repair Bill: $365

NewsMax.com

November 18, 1999

The government has toted up the nation's cost for trying to eradicate the Year 2000 computer bug.

If the bill were handed to Bill Gates it would more than wipe out the Microsoft chairman's vast fortune.

It's almost enough to buy a fleet of seven jumbo jets.

It's as much as seven of the largest federal agencies spent altogether last year.

For those who want to know how it affects them personally, they could split the estimated $100 billion tab at $365 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Last month, private analysts had the overall repair costs figured out even higher, at $114 billion. And no one is pretending that all problems that will crop up from unfixed computers that read the year 2000 as 1900 are cured.

Even so, the federal government's latest report, issued Wednesday, painted a rather rosy picture of the Y2K problem.

"I'm not going to lose any sleep," said Commerce Secretary William Daley.

A Y2K expert with Cap Gemini consulting firm, Howard Rubin, told the Associated Press:

"This country's highest level of risk right now is due to the complacency of arrogance, believing this thing is solved because we spent enough money."

The Commerce Department report minimized the impact of possible Y2K computer failures as "something like a tangled shoelace for a world-class marathon runner."

It said the country's booming economy is "stable, large and resilient enough" that even worldwide failures won't seriously affect America's $9-trillion gross domestic product:

"Any glitches that pop up next year should not hurt our economic growth."

The chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion wasn't quite so cheerful.

John Koskinen said "several hundred thousand" small companies that have done nothing to adjust their computers "may lose their customers and go out of business."

The window of opportunity for making computer repairs is just about closed, he warned. "We are getting close to it's being too late to start."

But, while granting that a $100-billion repair bill is a whopper, the commerce secretary said, "the potential cost of not doing anything was far greater.

"The greatest cost to our economy is behind us."

To read how the government is spending $50 million to assemble an information center that will last for only a week or so, see this NewsMax.com story: Contact 'Y2K Bug Central' for Latest Info.

For the Latest News on Y2K, Links and Commentary, visit NewsMax.com's The Y2K Daily.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus43&counting.down), November 18, 1999

Answers

Must be very frustrating to Kosky when the other agencies don't follow their assigned script.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), November 18, 1999.

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