*** The Simplicity of Y2K: I Just Have A Few Small Questions Left *** (A repost of BigDog's Eight Questions - A Classic)

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The Simplicity of Y2K: I Just Have A Few Small Questions Left

I only have a few questions left. Unfortunately, they are the same questions I had a year ago. I'm a very slow learner, it appears.

1. If it took SSA nine years and enormous sums of money to reach compliance, barely, why will the IRS be ready so easily? Medicare/Medicaid? After all, I thought their computing situations were at least as complex as SSA? Yet they started in late-1997, so won't they be ready in 2005 or, say, 2002 based on lessons learned from SSA?

2. If the U.S. power, water, sewage and telecom industries will be ready, why do so few even self-report their readiness? Why is there minimal-to-no IV&V? Why are testing results in some industries semi-rigged for PR purposes or unpublicized?

3. How can the DOD and related agencies be ready, given their stated rates of progress as recently as a year ago and the complexity of their software/hardware environment? For extra credit, won't there be chaos and confusion within advanced weapons systems all around the world? What is the likely impact of this on terrorism and the threat of local-regional wars breaking out in 2000?

4. Since oil producers have said it isn't cost-effective to check for embedded systems because doing so would break the production chain itself and they will fix FOF, doesn't this mean that show-stoppers at rollover could drive the price of fuel through the roof for a long period of time?

5. Since entire countries (China, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, others) will be almost entirely noncompliant, won't there be major destabilizing impacts upon the international geopolitical situation and serious disruption in the global supply chain for a variety of critical commodities over a period of many months?

6. Since many other countries, including advanced ones, are a year behind the U.S. in compliance efforts, doesn't this suggest they will face the level of breakdown at rollover we would have faced in December, 1998? Since even Koskinen/Bennett say that the level of U.S. breakdown would have been severe at that point, isn't it logical to state that the level of breakdown in these countries will be severe?

7. Wouldn't it have been better to raise a consistent, intense international alarm about Y2K and the need for global preparation, to mitigate all the effects possible above and acclerate remediation?

Whether it is tens of billions or hundreds of billions (what are a few zeros between friends?), it is evident that Y2K (software plus embeddeds) is a real crisis that would cripple entities who don't remediate. Presumably, this is why Bank of Boston, Citibank, GM and others actually spent hundreds of millions of dollars (God bless them).

Alas, that leads to my final question, still unanswered a year later:

8. Given the reality of Y2K impacts for those who don't remediate and questions 1-7 above, how can we possibly escape an intense global recession, minimally, or more likely a global depression (when one adds the unwinding of a historic market bubble to Y2K impacts)?

An inquiring mind wants to know.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 24, 1999

A special thanks to BigDog for these classic eight questions from Snooze Button.

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-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), November 27, 1999

Answers

Answers:

1-7, yes. 8, maybe stow away on the space shuttle?

-- nohiding (nohiding@anywhere.com), November 27, 1999.


Sigh. Why are these questions, with maybe some minimal edits, still applicable in December, 1999?

Old-timers will remember that I ferociously disavowed "debate" on the thread in question and gratefully accepted all accolades to my genius (let's see, as I recall, Anita described me as an egomaniac by the end of the thread ... those pollies are humorless, ain't they)?

This time around, debate away if you'd wish. Flint, since it's Thanksgiving and I'm actually on a holiday from real work, I promise to "reason" with you ad nauseam (yes, until I vomit) on this thread.

And you can still be RIGHT in the end, I promise! :-)

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 27, 1999.


Big Dog, scarey and sad that these questions are still relevant. Y2K as frightening as it may well be, is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is really going on in this chaotic time Have you read Beyond Civilization yet (Daniel Quinn's new book--author of Ishmael)? It was featured on Yourdon's site a few days ago.

I always enjoy your thoughtful posts and appreciate your involvement in the prep forum. With an exception of a couple of the forum readers with an opposite view, glibness always seems to win out in a "discussion" with them..

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.


Nancy -- Thanks. Of course, I've been known to be glib myself every so-very once in a while.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 27, 1999.

When I bring up such questions to techie-types, they always reassure me that "most computers don't care what day it is."

IOW, the 99/00 date thing is simply not life-or-death to most of the world's computers. Most of them simply don't NEED to be "y2k compliant" in order to function normally.

Isn't this the basis of all pollyanna thought on the subject?

-- but what (do@I.know), November 27, 1999.



Big Dog:

OK, I'll do my best.

[1. If it took SSA nine years and enormous sums of money to reach compliance, barely, why will the IRS be ready so easily? Medicare/Medicaid? After all, I thought their computing situations were at least as complex as SSA? Yet they started in late-1997, so won't they be ready in 2005 or, say, 2002 based on lessons learned from SSA?]

SSA won't be ready. Neither will Medicare/Medicaid or the IRS. I predict a LOT of inconvenience and strange workarounds. Big problems.

[2. If the U.S. power, water, sewage and telecom industries will be ready, why do so few even self-report their readiness? Why is there minimal-to-no IV&V? Why are testing results in some industries semi- rigged for PR purposes or unpublicized?]

Quite a few different questions here. First, power and telecom *have* reported readiness by now, along with a considerable amount of test results. Water and sewage is an informational black hole. There is no IV&V industry for these industries to speak of, so where would the expertise come from? Automated tools? If applicable, these work in- house just as well.

I don't quite know what to make of the PR Demo-style testing. For all I know, this technique is in some cases intended to symbolize real repairs that have been performed, and in other cases used to disguise the *lack* of repairs. And of course, historically code maintenance has been anything but newsworthy.

[3. How can the DOD and related agencies be ready, given their stated rates of progress as recently as a year ago and the complexity of their software/hardware environment?]

They can't. Hopefully they've hit the important stuff well enough. We may never know (at least I *hope* we'll never know!)

[For extra credit, won't there be chaos and confusion within advanced weapons systems all around the world? What is the likely impact of this on terrorism and the threat of local-regional wars breaking out in 2000?]

Probably not. As I understand it, the key line of investigation revolves around these weapons systems being in a known state, even if that state is "won't work". I suspect terrorism or local wars depend on the gamble that weapons systems will fail, since of course DoD announces that everything works fine and while you know this can't be true, you don't know how false it might be. In any case, I refuse to even try to guess what people might do. Nothing would surprise me.

[4. Since oil producers have said it isn't cost-effective to check for embedded systems because doing so would break the production chain itself and they will fix FOF, doesn't this mean that show- stoppers at rollover could drive the price of fuel through the roof for a long period of time?]

Now wait. First, SOME oil producers have said that SOME of their systems aren't cost-effective to REPAIR, since the known bugs don't affect functionality. Checking (one way or another) has been done. Second, many of these systems can be effectively lab-checked or otherwise evaluated by the manufacturer. Yes, this is a calculated risk, but the odds against you are very low (as ever). And third, if they missed (or ignored) some show-stoppers, this could indeed drive up the price of fuel. How long depends on a lot of factors. It could indeed be very long.

[5. Since entire countries (China, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, others) will be almost entirely noncompliant, won't there be major destabilizing impacts upon the international geopolitical situation and serious disruption in the global supply chain for a variety of critical commodities over a period of many months?]

Sigh. What does it mean to say that a country is noncompliant? From my reading, this applies to the government departments and services in that country, NOT necessarily to the businesses located there. I won't try to predict the relative stability of the geopolitical situation, and the state of each supply chain depends on the ability of the actors in that chain to operate, irrespective of their geographical location. Some multinational corporations have claimed compliance of their overseas operations. The ultimate status of overseas infrastructures I can't guess at. I won't deny that things could be bad overseas, with large domestic impacts.

[6. Since many other countries, including advanced ones, are a year behind the U.S. in compliance efforts, doesn't this suggest they will face the level of breakdown at rollover we would have faced in December, 1998? Since even Koskinen/Bennett say that the level of U.S. breakdown would have been severe at that point, isn't it logical to state that the level of breakdown in these countries will be severe?]

I suppose this depends on the degree and nature of the automation. I admit I'm not comfortable with these large generalizations, though. What does "a year behind" really mean, in terms of the details (which are what will matter)? What do Koskinen and Bennett define as "severe"? By current indications, both the failure rate and failure impact will be higher within organizations that started later *relative* to the required level of effort. In this area, we just don't have enough salient information to apply logic to. So my reaction is to prepare for the worst I can, and hope things turn out better.

[7. Wouldn't it have been better to raise a consistent, intense international alarm about Y2K and the need for global preparation, to mitigate all the effects possible above and acclerate remediation?]

I have no idea. Maybe. But what form should this alarm have taken? A media blitz? A highly publicized arm-twisting? We do know that many organizations have been keeping tabs on their suppliers and vendors less formally. I have no idea what governments have been doing sub rosa. I can't even speculate on the likelihood of any specific form of alrm lighting genuine fires under laggards sooner than it was. In any case, it's idle to speculate on what *might* have happened depending on what we *might* have done. For all I know, such an effort may have backfired, leading to resentment and foot dragging instead of earlier and more diligent efforts. Who can say?

[Whether it is tens of billions or hundreds of billions (what are a few zeros between friends?), it is evident that Y2K (software plus embeddeds) is a real crisis that would cripple entities who don't remediate. Presumably, this is why Bank of Boston, Citibank, GM and others actually spent hundreds of millions of dollars (God bless them).]

True enough. The money was spent, and the results will soon be in.

[Alas, that leads to my final question, still unanswered a year later:

8. Given the reality of Y2K impacts for those who don't remediate and questions 1-7 above, how can we possibly escape an intense global recession, minimally, or more likely a global depression (when one adds the unwinding of a historic market bubble to Y2K impacts)?]

This is a purely rhetorical question, and I don't know how to address it. If your worst-case assumptions are all true, then such a recession/depression probably can't be avoided. Whether those assumptions reflect "the reality of y2k impacts" seems doubtful. I have no doubt that millions of people will be dealing with millions of problems as best they can. The precise, on-the-ground nature of those problems (utterly unguessable right now) will make or break us. I'm prepared for a wild ride, but don't expect one. Instead, I expect patience to be even more of a virtue as we struggle with fixes, delays, substitutes, and lots of short-term, ad hoc amnesties.

Things don't *look* as bad as they did when you originally wrote this. Whether the appearances match the reality, I have no idea.



-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 27, 1999.


Flint -- Not surprisingly, I have disagreements and bones to pick, but I'm not in as "radical" disagreement with many of your points as one might have expected. When it's 55 degrees in the Catskills and mid-30's expected as highs for next five days, one spends the entire and all-too-short day working outside on the garden, animals, fences, etc. Catch you later with a response.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 27, 1999.

Flint,

Good answers, and pretty moderate. I always look at your posts to see what *could* be said in defense of some gloomy predictions. Glad to see you are still in good form and feeling comfortable, relatively speaking. I wish you would elaborate on point #5. I know it's hard to predict what might happen in China, but what about right here? If our own government were to suffer severe disruptions, to the extent that they just can not function as they did before, what impact would that have on the supply chain. You might think of customs, ports, air freight, for starters.

I must admit that I side with Big Dog in his thinking and opinions more often than I do with you, but still, I like to hear the moderate prognosis so that I can keep my reality-base up to date.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), November 27, 1999.


SSA won't be ready. Neither will Medicare/Medicaid or the IRS. I predict a LOT of inconvenience and strange workarounds. Big problems.

I think this statement just about nails it as far as the US is concerned. Still, every time I see a Y2K news spot here, they seem to be alluding to "problem areas" in other [supposedly less prepared] parts of the world.

From what I understand, the US Government has about 70,000 systems of which all but about 6,300 "critical" systems have been virtually ignored.

Imagine 91% of the US federal workforce suddenly being severed on January 1. Yes, we would still be functional, but only at a mere fraction of our 20th-century capacity.

-- Zach Anderson (z@figure.8m.com), November 27, 1999.


Zach:

While I don't equate noncompliance with outright severance, I personally feel the rough equation that 90% of government activity is noncritical sounds about right. If y2k is the only politically feasible way to lop off huge chunks of noncritical government activity, there may be a silver lining here.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 27, 1999.



You know, there was a great essay about a year ago regarding the other systems of the Government that aren't "mission critical". It was written to the Officials who said there had been a reduction in the number of Mission Critical Systems.

Paraphrased, it said, "Since these other systems are not critical, then we the people expect you to shut them down now, as we the taxpayers, refuse to spend one more dollar on systems you don't need."

Of course they would moan that those are "very important systems" that they can't do away with.

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), November 27, 1999.


Flint, I'm sorry I took a cheap shot at you the other day. Your response to this post is what I really like to see from you (as opposed to the mood you were in that day). It doesn't hurt any of us to have a dose of 'the other side' occasionally.

Based on the responses I have been able to elicit backchannel from acquaintences in the local offices of the state and federal agencies that I deal with on a daily basis, I reluctantly expect an 8 or 9 in regards to their capablility after 1/1. I know of one local fed office (sorry, cannot name it, I promised.) that has not even begun testing for most of their systems. The rest of the systems have not been fixed. Not even started. The portion of the systems that have been remediated includes payroll and receipts (tax receipt transfers from the main office....not disbursements to providers (thats where I fit.). If not repaired in time, I may well be out of business by 1/25/2000. Their contingency plan is for the providers to tell THEM how much THEY owe US and they will cut a check....and balance out sometime in the future when they are back up and running. That will work as long as someone in their office doesn't try to play God and decide who gets what.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), November 28, 1999.


Flint, I'm sorry I took a cheap shot at you the other day. Your response to this post is what I really like to see from you (as opposed to the mood you were in that day). It doesn't hurt any of us to have a dose of 'the other side' occasionally.

Based on the responses I have been able to elicit backchannel from acquaintences in the local offices of the state and federal agencies that I deal with on a daily basis, I reluctantly expect an 8 or 9 in regards to their capablility after 1/1. I know of one local fed office (sorry, cannot name it, I promised.) that has not even begun testing for most of their systems. The rest of the systems have not been fixed. Not even started. The portion of the systems that have been remediated includes payroll and receipts (tax receipt transfers from the main office....not disbursements to providers (thats where I fit.). If not repaired in time, I may well be out of business by 1/25/2000. Their contingency plan is for the providers to tell THEM how much THEY owe US and they will cut a check....and balance out sometime in the future when they are back up and running. That will work as long as someone in their office doesn't try to play God and decide who gets what. Insofar as the 'non-essential' systems are concerned, I have had too many of the gov. IT people tell me (tongue in cheek, I hope) that the only systems they consider critical are the revenue producers and payroll. I'm not real sure that they were kidding.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), November 28, 1999.


Sorry about the double post. I got a nervous twitch in my click finger when I was writing about what the fed might do. (Might have been when I was looking over my shoulder.)

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), November 28, 1999.

Flint --

In a general way, you confirm the uncertainty that my original post was simply underlining. As is well-known, I find that uncertainty something that most probably points to a very bad Y2K impact or, at an absolute minimum, the need for steady prepping right up until rollover. While "self-sufficiency" is unobtainable for all except a few, it remains a good goal. As you yourself say above, you have prepared "for the worst you can." This remains the best advice.

I think you're oversimplifying the case with the danger of terrorism and war(s). It isn't that difficult to probe for the readiness-state of weapons systems, intelligence, etc. Nor will it be possible to hide all of that data from adversaries (advanced "listening posts" are not something used only by U.S.).

I entirely disagree with the "raising the alarm" comment. Y2K offered a great opportunity for a worldwide cooperative effort. Of course, politics and tensions would have played their role but that doesn't negate the point. A world leader of stature (not necessarily Clinton) could have made a huge difference, particularly with preparation. I would say that the real problem here was always finding a leader with the peculiar set of skills and the needed temperament to understand the subtleties as well as the peril of the situation -- and who didn't mind expending huge political capital in the process. Not likely.

Of course, we still disagree on the "guessability" of it all. The only question for me now is between recession and depression (and, in a worst case, something beyond depression). The inability of anyone to supply modestly reasonable positive data in December of 1999 to my "questions" cannot be regarded as merely neutral on the subject of impacts, IMO.

Finally, while I share a view that lopping off unnecessary government activity would undoubtedly be a great plus over the long-term, government is the largest "sector" of our economy. If it takes a massive direct hit, not only will many citizens be wounded, but the spillover effects from the related unemployment of several millions and uncertain will puncture the markets and trigger a deep recession, which might in turn, become depression, all by itself. CF Lobo's post.

Lobo -- Don't worry, Hoffy says there are no non-mission critical systems, just "inactive ones". I'm sure the .gov has made a "wise" decision to replace all their "active" systems with SAP.

BTW, Flint, while the subject of whistle-blowing is a good one and goes on endlessly, I personally will bet that the "back channel" information that we have gotten on this forum proves more accurate than all the PR from the .gov, big biz and the media. Yeah, we're a bunch of doomers -- but we're here on this forum for a reason. And there is more "coverage" of the world's bases represented here than one might think. A tiny sample, statistically, yes, but a relevant sample professionally and, more importantly, intellectually. A lot of fun is always made of us all (including you, needless to say), but the long-time regulars are a very tough, discerning and, in fact, realistic, experienced group of people. They could be wrong (OBVIOUSLY), but I've put my money on them, without regret. In the end, it's all about weighing the "intel" that is available .....

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 28, 1999.



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