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Blame for Year 2000 hysteria starts at GAOBy Tom Giammo
Perhaps it is not too early to begin the finger-pointing over the real Year 2000 catastrophe.
When the grand anti-climax to the Year 2000 problem occurs Jan. 1, the media likely will be full of "experts" who knew all along that the dire predictions were gross exaggerations and that the supposed cure was many times worse than the disease. If anyone is to be heard above that coming din, it is best to speak up now.
An insightful opinion piece by professor Paul Kedrosky in the Dec. 8 issue of The Wall Street Journal has pointed the first finger: "While there was a date-related problem in many computer programs, the panic outdistanced the likelihood of calamity so much that we reached absurdity in record time."
As he points out, very few of the trillions of dollars attributed to Year 2000 remediation is related to any actual technical fixes of the problem. The Gartner Group Inc., for example, is cited as estimating that 80 percent of the total Year 2000 cost is related to public relations. Kedrosky blames the media and economists such as Edward Yardeni, Ed Yourdon and Peter de Jaeger for creating Year 2000 alarmism.
I believe that Kedrosky is a bit off in his assessment of underlying responsibility. By and large, the media and the economists he cited have nontechnical backgrounds and were not capable of making any personal assessments of the risk. In general, they served merely to transmit what they were told by people with more technical expertise. The same is true of members of Congress, the Clinton administration, the legal profession, corporate boards, regulatory agencies and others who took up the cry, motivated either by genuine concern or by vested interest.
Ultimately, I believe the technical community must shoulder the major blame for originating and stoking the panic. They should have known better. Elements within the technical community benefited directly from the alarm. The prestige and influence in of techies were enhanced. Money became freely available for any long-desired project that could be even remotely tied to the Year 2000 issue.
The real question here is: Is there a small number of people who could reasonably have been expected to behave in a way and to a degree that would have made a significant difference? I believe that the answer is yes, and the responsible organization is one of my alma maters: the General Accounting Office.
It is my view that the key abdication of responsibility in the Year 2000 issue was GAO's uncritical adoption of its "triple negative" standard that held that if an agency could not provide positive and convincing evidence that none of the functions of an information system would be affected by Year 2000, that system would thereby be rendered "noncompliant."
Let me trace my "for the want of a nail" reasoning that caused me to settle on this particular element. It should be obvious that this standard is difficult -- and expensive -- to meet, even for those systems without the remotest connection to critical data functions. For the most part, exhaustive code searches and/or elaborate detailed emulations would be required to meet the defined standard.
GAO's adoption of this stringent standard as federal "good practice" regarding Year 2000 lit the oversight fires in Congress. Congressional opportunism, supported by repeated testimony and reports from a group of "experts" in GAO, turned the GAO standard into a mandated requirement, which triggered several hundred billion dollars of federal expenditures. The federal regulatory agencies fell in line and in turn imposed this requirement on their corporate constituents such as banks, brokerage firms and power companies.
The legal profession mobilized for Year 2000 lawsuits. The media was stirred into action and flooded households with assurances that assumed catastrophe was likely unless heroic measures were undertaken. From that point on, the fear fed on itself.
Let me suggest that in each of the steps outlined above, the negative effect would have been dampened considerably had the underlying GAO standard been defined more reasonably. One also should note that in the rest of the developed world, absent the initial prod of something like this GAO standard, the Year 2000 concern was far more restrained -- at least until the concern of the United States and its associated triple-negative standard propagated there through the ties of international commerce.
Was the GAO's standard responsible? Even given what was known about the Year 2000 problem at the time the standard was first promulgated, the answer is "no."
GAO's own risk analysis and mitigation guidance requires a thorough study of the likelihood of the potential risks and the magnitude of the consequences vs. the costs of various mitigation strategies. Given the extreme stringency of its resulting standard, one should expect the evidence to be overwhelming that GAO expected risks that were high and significant and that it had convincing proof that the triple-negative standard was the most cost-effective approach. GAO has never published such a study, and one must doubt that it ever was made.
Even if GAO had somehow decided that its ignorance of the problem at the time justified a triple-negative standard as an interim measure, it had ample time and evidence to reverse that decision. One would think that the multitude of Year 2000 assessments would furnish sufficient data for a realistic GAO analysis of the probable risks and consequences. Regardless of any bias GAO may have held, they should have been alerted by the scarcity of even anecdotal negative results on the scale that might have justified the standard.
-- Giammo retired from government service in 1993 when he was assistant commissioner of the Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to that, he had been an associate director at GAO, with responsibility for government information technology issues.
http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/1220/fcw-opedgiammo-12-20-99.html
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-- LOON (blooney10@aol.com), December 20, 1999
Well, I'm delighted to see that I've been "promoted" to a title of economist; maybe if I wait a little longer, someone will describe me as a brain surgeon, rocket scientist, or nuclear physicist. Sheesh!I was also intrigued by the references to "trillions" of dollars having been spent on Y2K remediation. Indeed, there was a prediction at one point by Capers Jones that the TOTAL cost of Y2K, including litigation, repairs and recovery from actual Y2K bugs, etc, could approach $2 trillion. But for the most part, the recent reports have suggested that the U.S. has under-spent the earlier predictions from companies like Gartner.
And where did this so-called Gartner estimate come from, the one that says that 80% of Y2K expenditures have been spent on public relations?!? I've never seen anything like this, and it doesn't make any sense to me at all...
Overall, though, the fundamental premise of this article is intriguing: if we should be so lucky as to avoid serious Y2K problems, will there actually be a witch-hunt to see who is "guilty" for making society spend so much money? Hmmm... I hope they don't blame me for somehow hypnotizing Koskinen et al into spending $40 million for their Y2K bunker.
I sure am glad Mr. Giammo retired from government service before he could do any more harm with analyses like this one...
Ed
-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), December 20, 1999.
Big Dog,Thanks for the invitation, but I'm really busy right now, trying to use my allegedly superhuman powers to turn lead into gold ...
Ed
P.S. Just in case Giammo and friends are reading this, I suppose I should point out that that was intended as light sarcasm...
-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), December 20, 1999.
Panic!! What panic???
-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.
Well, we Yourdonites blame the GAO, and Bennett, and Dodd, and Hamre, etc. etc. for publishing all the dismal reports. Steve Horn, too.
-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 20, 1999.
Giammo claims GAO set the bar too high. How can that be? The .gov is 99.9% compliant.
-- gimmeabreak (yesterday@now.net), December 20, 1999.
Kedrosky blames the media and economists such as Edward Yardeni, Ed Yourdon and Peter de Jaeger for creating Year 2000 alarmism.Hey Ed, you and Petey dJ are economists now!
By and large, the media and the economists he cited have nontechnical backgrounds and were not capable of making any personal assessments of the risk. In general, they served merely to transmit what they were told by people with more technical expertise.
Chortle!
Ultimately, I believe the technical community must shoulder the major blame for originating and stoking the panic. They should have known better. Elements within the technical community benefited directly from the alarm. The prestige and influence in of techies were enhanced. Money became freely available for any long-desired project that could be even remotely tied to the Year 2000 issue.
Puh-leeze! Yeah, accountants NEVER use a 2-digit year! Managers always INSIST that programmers fix current problems before working on new features. Those "long desired" projects would probably mostly slow down remediation (those are the "new features" that programmers fight off when trying to fix current bugs). This guy really knows his stuff, I can tell.
*sigh*
Celestine
-- Celestine (maxcel@swlink.net), December 20, 1999.
If you want to point the finger of blame, start with Klintoon. He is to be blamed for being STUPID! And next in line is Kosky for taking full advantage of Klintoon's stupidity and spreading the lies to the public. Has anyone ever asked themselves just what Kosy's future plans are? I would bet that he owns a nice little villa on a Caribbean Island or off the coast of SA. Who will give him a job after this? Who will even give him the other half of the sidewalk? He should go down as one of the most despised men in history, but he has done his job sooooooooo well, that 99.9% of the American public has never heard of him. Its enuff to make even us old grannys get violent. God help him if he ever walks in front of my pickup truck!!Taz
-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), December 20, 1999.
I don't believe Garner Group really said 80% of Y2K project expense was for public relations. If they did say it, I'd like to read more.What public relations campaigns? Perhaps the "We're Y2K OK" inserts mailed with our electric bills? Most organizations have told us next to nothing about their Y2K projects other than 'we'll be fine'.
If Gartner Group is correct that about $80 billion was spent for public relations on about $20 billion of software remediation, I'm moving into a bunker somewhere. I don't believe it.
-- Richard Greene (Rgreene@ford.com), December 20, 1999.
The Gartner Group Inc., for example, is cited as estimating that 80 percent of the total Year 2000 cost is related to public relations.Is this true? If it is, when problems begin in January, heads are gonna roll. The public would be asking why only 20% of Y2k budgets were devoted to fixing the problem.
-- (is@it.true), December 20, 1999.
I forgot to mention the GAO is the only goobermint office whose reports I trust. Even during the Clinton Administration. GAO has a history of being reasonable and relatively accurate. Politicians often trash their reports -- another point in their favor. I really liked the GAO report on the (lack of) real savings from ALGORE'S "reinventing government".
-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), December 20, 1999.
OouuWwwch! That article is Sooo off the mark it's hilarious! 11 days before KaBOOM too! LOL LOLROTFLOAOTWP LOL OouuWwwch!
-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 20, 1999.
Somebody asked Bennett why the GAO reports seemed to be so contrary to Koskinen's statements: "Because Koskinen reports to Clinton, whereas the GAO reports to Congress."
-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 20, 1999.
Talking about Y2K in the past tense? Oh, how arrogantly premature.In 11 days (and then a couple of months) we'll see whether the PR $$$ might have been better spend preventing loss of production $$$. Now that's REAL cost.
-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.
Paul Kedrosky should be committed.
-- earl (ejrobill@pcpostal.com), December 20, 1999.
What truly amazes me is that whilemost all "experts" agree that no one knows what will happen, we get journalists writing tripe such as this:"When the grand anti-climax to the Year 2000 problem occurs Jan. 1, the media likely will be full of "experts" who knew all along that the dire predictions were gross exaggerations and that the supposed cure was many times worse than the disease."
Does this guy have a crystal ball? Matbe he should plat the lottery!
-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), December 20, 1999.
So should this idiot (Tom Giammo).
-- moronseverywhere (one@other.idiot), December 20, 1999.
A small sample of Prof. Kedrosky's work, from REWIRED:by Paul Kedrosky
February 1st, 1999
A month ago Jacqueline from CNN telephoned and asked if I would talk about Internet stocks on an upcoming edition of Moneyline. Would I?
Cable television networks CNN and CNBC are the true beating hearts of the Internet economy. Without their untiring boosterism, initial public offerings wouldn't vault into the sky, equity analysts would return to being glorified accountants, Roger MacNamee would have to trade stocks for a living, Tony Perkins would have to edit his writers at the Red Herring, and all sorts of retail investors would go back to doing whatever retail investors did before CNN and CNBC popped up.
But I toned my enthusiasm down a little when talking to Jacqueline, trying to strike the sort of appropriately indifferent note that a television-jaded pundit should strike. "Sure," I said, making sure to exhale world-wearily rather than pronouncing the "r": Shuuu, the tenth this week.
Because once you're in, you're in. It is almost as difficult to unseat a pundit as it was to get Paul Lynde out of the center square on the old Hollywood Squares. I had visions of a regular guest spot with Myron Kandel and Lou Dobbs on CNN's Moneyline. "Paul, what do you think of Excite's purchase by @Home?" Lou would ask me. "Well Lou and Myron, to be frank I think it's a great deal for Excite but a lousy one for @Home." Or a great deal for @Home but a lousy one for Excite. Anything, really, as long as there is a bit of conflict and a fast opinion. It really doesn't matter. Just say something, and say it quickly and confidently, and everything will turn out fine. (Further study showed me that it also helps to say "to be frank" a lot.)
As James Carville said recently -- and he should know, what with clearing a cool couple of million dollars in speaking fees last year -- being a television pundit is a great gig for a pundit: You get to be a pundit because you're a pundit. It feeds neatly on itself. People call because they saw you somewhere, no reading required. And then more people call because they saw your name somewhere else. And so on and so on. It is a finely engineered system, one that guarantees punditry for you as long you're already a pundit -- no work required. Maxwell's Demon would call in sick.
I digress. First step after agreeing to do a guest spot on U.S. network television is the pre-interview. But rather than being a casual conversation about the topic, it is a complex dance, one that comes complete with its own idiosyncracies and mating rituals.
Pre-interviews are a little like a recruiter or a head-hunter calling you and saying, "Do you know anyone who might be good for such-and-such a job?" Maybe not everyone knows this, but they don't really want you to recommend Steve-that-you-met-at-that-conference-in-Atlanta. They want you to say, "Me! Pick me!" But appropriately blasi, of course. I didn't know that for the longest time, and I'm sure it was a real source of frustration for recruiters. Sorry about that.
Anyway, something similar happens with network television. "We're not sure we'll actually have time to do the spot," Jacqueline told me, "but I'd still like to talk to you a little and find out what you think." Neat tactic, huh? Flatter me that my views matter, but also make it brassily apparent that there is no quid pro quo: they may ask questions and then still dump me.
So she asked and I answered. I raged and waxed quotable, trotting out every metaphor, aphorism, and earthy bit of patter I could think of from my last few months of shower auditions and from babbling in front of my students. "The inmates are taking over the asylum ... Sturgeon's Law ... small floats ... winner-take-all economy ... fool's gold." It was exhausting, but I usually give good audition...
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 20, 1999.
Sorry...
about that. I was so taken with Prof. Kedrosky's breathless prose that I neglected to close some tags...
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 20, 1999.
Print this one now, (while you still can - grin) and then fax it to Giammo (if you can!) about the first week in February......Now remember the principles of "group think" - it is from these "experts" that Mr. K is drawing his advice, it is from this kind of "expret analysis", and from press releases (already formatted and with i's crossed and t's dotted) that the journalists are getting their "data."
Those who even bother trying to research the subject at all.....
-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 20, 1999.
What are Prof Kedrosky's credentials with respect to software revision and testing, to business processes, and to manufactoring and industrial methods?If he is only economics, or only business, (or worse) only politics - his opinions are merely high-priced ramblings.
-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 20, 1999.
Two points.First, what panic? There seems to be little panic on the part of the public. There's also little panic on the part of small businesses, especially ones that have been convinced by the media that Y2K is not a major issue and have decided to wait and see what happens next month.
Secondly, there were 18 "high-impact" government programs last month that still weren't ready. I hate to think about how many more government programs would have not been ready as of last month if Edward Yardeni, Ed Yourdon and Peter de Jaeger had not helped raise awareness about Y2K.
November 1999 information about Y2K:
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001qX5[snip]
The 18 "at risk" federal programs include: child nutrition; food safety inspection; food stamps; supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children (WIC); student aid; child care; child support enforcement; child welfare; Indian health services; low- income home energy assistance; Medicaid; Medicare; temporary assistance for needy families; public housing; unemployment insurance; retired rail worker benefits; air traffic control system; and maritime safety.
[snip]
Also see...
http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/y2k/991122.htm
-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 20, 1999.
Robert -From The University of British Columbia:
Paul Kedrosky - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration
He worked for DEC, then on Wall Street, now an assistant professor at UBC. I dunno, somehow his credentials don't seem to stack up with those of, say, Ed Yardeni or Ed Yourdon.
But he "gives good audition", so I guess that's all that matters.
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 20, 1999.
What a complete moron!!!
-- (karlacalif@aol.com), December 20, 1999.
Ed Yourdon, the nuclear UFO pilot, said today that ...
-- ROTFLMAO (media@idiots.duh uh), December 20, 1999.
Okay - so we have a blatantly incorrect, most certainly biased and prejudicial story in the Wall Street Journal - one containing significant inaccuracies and making extravagant predictions about the nation's economy next year based on the very, very dubious opinions of only one supposed "expert" .....If the time is taken to create a "rebuttal" article - or at least a long (commentary) letter-to-the-editor exposing the gross inconsistancies within this piece, how can we (collectively) get the editor's ear to get it printed?
While easy to write, and more difficult to get checked for accuracy - we have that capablity within the "group" - but if there is no chance of pritned rebuttal - the effort is meaningless to the world at large.
-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 20, 1999.
Robert, you can write a letter to the editor. Often the WSJ editorial pieces are completely screwloose. Yet there is good journalism in the paper, too... This piece is nutz.
-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 20, 1999.
The Gartner Group Inc., for example, is cited as estimating that 80 percent of the total Year 2000 cost is related to public relations. Kedrosky blames the media and economists such as Edward Yardeni, Ed Yourdon and Peter de Jaeger for creating Year 2000 alarmism.Well, you have to laugh at all these people declaring victory before the war is over.
Giammos source for this little tidbit is the Kedrosky article. Kedroskys source is less clear. My company subscribes to Gartner so I tried searching the data base.
Gartner did say (27 May 1999) "Between 1999 and 1H00 enterprises will spend up to 30 percent of their year 2000 budget on managing and reacting to the internal and external perception of year 2000 risks (0.8 probability)." It was a prediction, not a statement of fact, and the figure was up to 30%, not 80%. Gartner was making the legitimate point that enterprises (banks, for example) needed to make sure that their customers know that they are or will be Y2K compliant.
This additional evidence just adds to my suspicion that the Kedrosky article is deliberate disinformation, and I further suspect that the WSJ was, shall we say, strongly encouraged to publish it.
If the time is taken to create a "rebuttal" article - or at least a long (commentary) letter-to-the-editor exposing the gross inconsistancies within this piece, how can we (collectively) get the editor's ear to get it printed?
The rebuttal will be on CNN the morning of January 1.
-- Alan Rushby (arushby@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.
Well it would be interesting to see what Joel would say about this.I couldn't find a E addy for Joel but I am sure the GAO webmaster would forward a message.
Anyone from the US going to take up the challange?
Joel C. Willemssen
Director, Civil Agencies Information Systems
Accounting and Information Management Division
webmaster@gao.gov
-- Brian (imager@home.com), December 20, 1999.
Ed, you are a tremendously powerful, almost omnipotent figure. You, nearly singlehandedly have been responsible for duping the world about Y2K (thanks, Hoffy), spreading FUD wherever you go while getting rich in the process. It's YOU that have ruined cpr's fitful sleep for almost two years now. Yes, it's YOU that Alan Greenspan thinks about in his spare time. And, finally, it's you, not Monica, that has Mr. Bill pondering the meaning of "is".Since you're so powerful, couldn't you pretty, pretty please tell us that Y2K will be a BITR? If only you would, it will BE a BITR.
Do it for the children ....
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 20, 1999.
I don't have a link, but the 80% of the money for PR was for only the fourth quarter of '99. I know I read it recently, but don't recall where.
-- Steve (hartsman@ticon.net), December 21, 1999.
Ed, the mad scientist alchemist, said today that he was too busy with his economist precious metals transformation experiments to use his powers to stop Y2K from affecting children ...
-- ROTFLMAO (media@idiots.duh uh), December 21, 1999.
This published article should be enough to get Tom Giammo fired.
-- beyond inaccurate (downright@false.criminal), December 21, 1999.
LOL Ed,Think you should write an article on "Y2K events remediating the newsmedia." Next year.
There are so many characters to choose from!
Diane
-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 21, 1999.
Perhaps the "lead" Ed is speaking of transforming comes in the .22, .223 or 00 Buck varieties ....ED -- DON'T ANSWER, WHATEVER YOU DO ..... ;-)
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 21, 1999.
Ed, the mad alchemist Y2K militant survivalist leader, allegedly is on the cusp of molting a break-through Millennial Ammo, said to defend any bunker from any assault, including the nuclear UFO attacks ...
-- ROTFLMAO (media@idiots.duh uh), December 21, 1999.
The article was linked by Gary North today.
http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/7189
Gary did not catch all the flagrant mistakes.
-- bad journalism award (this@article.stinks), December 21, 1999.
Alan -The more I read about Paul Kedrosky, the less impressed I am.
Here's his entry on the UBC MIS facility page: Paul Kedrosky
Note that, unlike every other faculty member, there are no research papers of any kind listed for this assistant professor of commerce. As recently as 1995, he was working on his Ph.D and writing product reviews for WIRED magazine.
His real-world experience seems equally minimal compared with those of the people he criticizes. Brief stints in middle management at DEC and as a Wall Street analyst don't compare with the backgrounds of Yardeni, Yourdon, or even de Jager.
This is not meant as an ad hominem attack on Mr. Kedrosky, but rather a questioning of his status as an authoritative voice on the implications and reality of Y2K. It seems as if he's gained stature through mere celebrity.
Here's an example from the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer": ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Interesting. Do you agree with that, Mr. Kedrosky, that it's a beneficial bubble, that it actually is working to the benefit of the whole economy in the long run?
PAUL KEDROSKY: Well, you know, that's kind of -- Joseph Schaumputer, an economist, sort of makes the same argument, that the great thing about capitalism is this kind of creative distraction. We throw a lot of cash into the system, it changes the system, good things come out the other end, so, broadly speaking, I agree with that...
For the benefit of the folks who fell asleep a little more often than I did during 8AM Econ lectures, German economist Joseph A. Schumpeter made many significant contributions to 20th century economic studies, including the concept of the process of "creative destruction" in capitalism, in which competition improves the economy even as it destroys obsolete firms and ideas. Great for the economy, not necessarily so good for, say, local politicians. 8-}]
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 21, 1999.
Shucks...
created another "mega-link". Very sloppy...
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 21, 1999.