Futurewatch Report

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Sonoma County : One Thread

The 2020 Group G L O B A L S I T U A T I O N R E P O R T Vol.1 No.22 - Nov. 25, 1999 - Part 3 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [][][][][][][][][]

This is part 3 of the 3-part Global Situation Report. If you did not receive all parts, please send email to: GSReport@aol.com.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [][][][][][][][][] F U T U R E W A T C H [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [][][][][][][][][]

GUESSTIMATING Y2K: MANY WAYS TO BE WRONG

By Michael Lindemann

Whatever happens on January 1, 2000 and the days to follow, one thing is sure -- a very large number of predictions about Y2K will prove wrong.

Wrongest of all, perhaps, will be those who persist to the last in declaring that Y2K is nothing but a "bump in the road" or less. Here at GSReport, we're still betting those folks will wind up eating their words. But not necessarily right away.

It may take years to fully appreciate how Y2K really impacted the world. Very likely, the moments just after the date change will see only isolated disruptions, though some may be quite serious. Larger-scale disruptions could emerge days, weeks or even months into the new year. Most will be products not of single computer failures but of complex interactions between many different systems, notably including systems that tested compliant right up to the very moment of failure.

How wrong will we prove to have been about Y2K? The answer might well boggle the imagination. Within a problem that has been described as the most complex in all of history, the ways to be wrong vastly outnumber the ways to be right. Herewith, a sample of possibilities.

LOTS OF MONEY SPENT IN VAIN...

Of the trillion or so dollars spent on remediation efforts around the globe, a large percentage may have been spent in vain. Among the reasons: Every effort to invasively rewrite code introduces a large number of new errors. In fact, according to Dale W. Way, Chairman of the Year 2000 Technical Information Focus Group, Technical Activities Board, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the error rate for newly written code is "fairly predictable" -- about 20 percent. In practical terms, that means that millions of lines of newly written computer code could test compliant for Y2K but fail for other reasons. In a significant number of occurrences, newly introduced errors might cause more serious failures than Y2K failure would have.

"A wiser approach may be [may have been?] to suspend operations while the window passes, or if there is a little longer window, generate a stop-gap workaround during that period to keep the business function that uses that system working to a necessary extent," Day says. "Alternatively, it may be better to just suspend that business function if it does not unduly hurt the organization/entity. But remediating everywhere, and just because, two-digit years were found in a system will likely be wasteful or counter-productive."

Good advice, perhaps, if heeded a year or two ago. But now, for better or worse, countless millions of lines of code have been "invasively fixed." The eventual outcome is anybody's guess.

NUCLEAR SYSTEMS: SHOULD THEY OR SHOULDN'T THEY?

The European Parliament voted on November 18 to ask countries to shut down their nuclear weapons alert systems over New Year to avoid accidental launches caused by the millennium bug. Deputies said they would appeal to the United States and Russia in particular to guard against possible errors in computer systems that cannot recognise the date change to 2000. The Parliament also voted to ask countries with nuclear power stations to shut them down over New Year's Eve unless they had been shown to be millennium compliant.

Good idea or not? Depends who you ask. U.S. Senator Robert Bennett, chairman of the special Senate panel on Y2K, blasted the European Parliament's vote as "ill-informed."

"This vote is particularly troubling in that it demonstrates an overall lack of awareness with regard to Y2K's potential effects on a country's infrastructure," Bennett said. The European plea also shows "a profound misunderstanding of Y2K's potential effects on ballistic missile systems.

"What the European Parliament is asking countries to do is wear blindfolds during the crucial date rollover," Bennett said.

IF IT BREAKS DURING Y2K, IS IT Y2K'S FAULT?

"The presumption is to blame all failures on Y2K that weekend," says John Koskinen, head of President Clinton's Y2K advisory council. But many failures occur rountinely, any day of the week, without Y2K -- and some that occur at the very moment of Y2K roll-over will have nothing to do with Y2K.

For example, says Paul Schmelzer, executive vice president for Orlando, Florida-based Star Systems Inc., about 10 percent of all credit transactions fail routinely because equipment breaks down, or because consumers are overextended or forget their ATM password.

Normally, such failures are no big deal. But with more than a trillion dollars in Y2K-related litigation just waiting to happen, sorting out blame could become one of the roughest contact sports of the year 2000.

Countless thousands of litigations could bog down in a blinding morass of confusion. Among the imponderables: If a company was certified compliant by an agency whose certifications were fraudulent (many will be), to what extent can that company be held liable for plaintiff's losses because it was in fact not complaint? And if the fraudulent certifying agency has conveniently disappeared from the map (many will), what recourse will the aggrieved have?

WILL OIL BE THE REAL ACHILLES HEAL OF Y2K?

Early predictions of total grid meltdown will almost certainly prove wrong almost everywhere -- although in a few of the world's most hapless nations, power failures could be massive and prolonged. Similarly, the banking system will function normally almost everywhere, despite gloomy scenarios to the contrary.

But muffled rumblings in the oil industry suggest that Y2K might be felt most acutely at the gas pump. Again, not necessarily right away.

With little fanfare, oil prices climbed from historic lows in January 1999 to the highest levels in at least nine years last week. While most analysts are still discounting the price movement as relatively temporary and economically insignificant, the margin of comfort is decidedly thin. It would take very little in the way of Y2K-related disruption of oil distribution, say at a major tanker facility in the Persian Gulf, to push oil prices above $30 a barrel and into the economic danger zone.

Even in the United States, where Y2K compliance in the energy sector is all but taken for granted, major oil distributors have quietly admitted that things could go wrong -- and they're not taking any chances. According to a November 24 Reuters news story, the nation's two largest distribution pipelines will both be shut down hours before the roll-over as a precaution.

Colonial Pipeline, the largest in the nation, plans an eight-hour shutdown starting on New Year's Eve, while Explorer Pipeline, the second largest, plans a 20-hour shutdown before the rollover, Reuters said. Those two pipelines together move some 3 million gallons per day of gasoline and other fuel products between Houston, Chicago and New York.

Also on November 24, Reuters for the first time reported that the U.S. Department of Energy is ready to sell crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) if necessary. "I don't want to send out alarming signals that we are gearing up for an inevitable SPR drawdown because of Y2K. But we do go through the precautionary preparations for that," said spokesman Robert Porter. The last time that happened was in 1991 during the Persian Gulf war.

Speaking of gasoline: Almost every list of things to do in preparing for Y2K includes the admonition to top off your car's gas tank. And that is a good idea -- if you do it well ahead of December 31. But don't wait too long. It's not just that you'll wind up in a huge line on New Year's Eve. According to industry sources, there is simply not enough gasoline available to top off every vehicle in America. In fact -- not even close.

A consultant to the oil industry, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells GSReport that "the nation's gas tank runs at about one-third full" on an average day. If a substantial percentage of the nation's cars and trucks try to fill up on or just before December 31, a great many gas stations will run dry. That, in itself, could start panic behavior in some places. Moreover, some underground tanks at gasoline stations are drained down so rarely that they contain buildups of sludge at the bottom. If you pump that sludge into your tank, you might do significant damage to your vehicle -- or at least find yourself stopped in the middle of the road with what looks like a full tank of gas. Word to the wise: Top off several days early, then try to keep your driving to a minimum over the date change.

THE ECONOMY: WILL IT OR WON'T IT?

A lot of people have got to be wrong about Y2K's net effect on the global economy. Most economists continue to predict no significant downturn during the early months of 2000. Others, such as Dr. Edward Yardeni of Deutsche Bank Securities, say the odds of at least a mild global recession are up around 70%. Some Y2K analysts see a 2000 to 3000 point drop in the U.S. stock market -- some see more than that -- while more mainstream types say the markets will hardly notice Y2K.

Here at GSReport, we continue to say, as we've said all year, that at least a moderate downturn in the global economy seems inevitable. We join that minority of prognosticators who predict at least a 2000-point drop in the Dow, maybe more. Could we be wrong? And how. Especially if being right means that the great majority of leading Western economists must be wrong instead. But we're sticking by our guns on this one. Make of it what you will.

DON'T TEST THAT PHONE, MARTHA...

Despite numerous warnings to the contrary, lots of people will undoubtedly reach for the nearest handy telephone at or just after the midnight roll-over. Consequence: In some places, the phone system will crash simply because too many people are trying to hear a dial tone. That would happen on any day of the week if the same number of people picked up the phone all at once. They don't, and it doesn't -- but it could at a few minutes after midnight on Jan 1, wherever you happen to be.

Good idea: DON'T pick up that phone unless you really need to, or you might contribute to a needless crash of your local phone system.

WILL THERE BE PANIC? WE'LL JUST HAVE TO SEE...

As Y2K moves westward through the planet's 24 time zones, people in Western Europe and especially in the Americas will have plenty of opportunity to hear advance news of breakdowns in potentially vulnerable areas such as East Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. Largely due to the unregulated information flow of the internet, any efforts by mainstream news media to moderate the tone of Y2K-related bad news might well backfire. Net result: Bad news will travel fast and could well amplify out of all proportion as it zooms westward. Further net result: Time and provocation aplenty for that last-minute panic most folks say won't happen, can't happen....

Well, yes, it can, despite all efforts to prevent it. Good idea: Whatever you think you might do in a last minute rush of panic, do now, ahead of time, in a rational way. Don't permit yourself to be swayed by panic. No matter what, panic can and should be avoided.

WATCHING OVER US ALL...

President Clinton's top Y2K adviser, John Koskinen, continues to assure anyone who'll listen that the United States will experience no major Y2K-related problems. But that hasn't stopped the Clinton administration from opening its new $50 million Information Coordination Center, just in case "some glitches" occur during the New Year rollover.

The ICC is a highly computerized crisis station near the White House designed to track Y2K failures worldwide. Like the billions of dollars, marks, francs, pounds and yen spent by corporations trying to beat the bug, the millions of dollars spent on this Y2K equivalent of a government war room belie all the smiling assurances that there's nothing to be concerned about. But what, exactly, should we be concerned about? And what, exactly, should we do about it? No one can say. Least of all the government.

The fact is, no event in human history has been more thoroughly anticipated, second-guessed, pooh-poohed and prepared for (at astronomical expense) than Y2K. And with all that said and done, no one on the face of the Earth knows what will happen. Open your mouth about Y2K, and chances are you will utter at least one wrong thing within seconds. But still, we've got to try, along with everyone else, to see through the fog and confusion. And that's what we've done here at GSReport all year long, admitting we could be wrong every step of the way. In the end, we can only hope we've done more good than harm.

At least the roll-over won't keep us waiting much longer. (Or could we be wrong about that, too?)

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [][][][][][][][][]

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Moderator of Y2K Prepare List on one.list.com Sheri Nakken Coordinator - Western Nevada County Y2K Preparedness Network **VISIT OUR NEW BOOKSTORE ONLINE*** http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/wncy2k.htm PO Box 1563, Nevada City, California 95959 Phone 530-272-7306

Business Owner - Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours Broadcaster/DJ/Reporter - KVMR FM, Nevada City, CA, 89.5, 99.3 Sacramento, 103.7 FM, Auburn - Host: The Y2k Forum, Once a month on Mondays 1 - 2 p.m. - next show Monday, December 20, 1999

"There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle." --Albert Einstein

-- alicia wills (wanderer@sonic.net), December 27, 1999


Moderation questions? read the FAQ