WAY too long to cut and paste...gonna read it now.

[added hotlink--Sysop]

http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=99121502.glt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 15, 1999

Answers

Summary:Excerpts: Y2K Czar Koskinen Speaks to National Press Club (Expresses confidence in nation's Y2K readiness)(8870)

The head of the President's Council on Y2K John Koskinen told the National Press Club in Washington December 14 that the onset of the New Year will bring some computer-related problems, but "Y2K failures need not mean that work grinds to a halt."

Koskinen emphasized that business, industry and government encounter a variety of operational problems regularly in everyday life, and find solutions while avoiding crisis. He said computer date-reading problems that occur as the calendar rolls to 2000 should be viewed in the same way.

"To that end, governments and businesses have been formulating, updating and testing contingency plans and strategies to allow them to continue their most important functions in the event of possible problems," Koskinen told a luncheon audience.

Koskinen answered a range of questions about the problem on the following topics: international readiness, expectations for the first days of January, expectations for the performance of embedded chips, the preparedness of Russian missile launch systems, and preparedness in Mexico.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 15, 1999.

Interesting comment.

"Y2K failures need not mean that work grinds to a halt."

Was it the audience?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.

Look at the last sentence from this excerpt. Transcript typo or Freudian slip? You make the call...

"But internationally we think that developed countries are well prepared, so again our worst-case scenario is a series of failures in a lot of different developing countries that challenge them. The Commerce Department studies demonstrated that because most of our trade is with developed countries, those problems are not going to cascade. They are likely to cascade into a major economic problem for us."

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 15, 1999.

VERY long read, but surprisingly worth it.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.