Unless you don’t listen to the radio, watch TV or read newspapers, you know what I
mean by Y2K. The fact that you are reading this on the Internet makes it almost beyond
reasonable doubt, even for Democratic Senators, that you don’t know what I am talking
about. However, just in case you don’t know what I am talking about, there are a lot
of apocalyptic predictions of doom and gloom for the year 2000. It is based on the fact
that, many years ago when computers had very limited memory, computer programmers only
used the last two digits of the year. Instead of "1975," it only uses
"75." The coming of the new millennium will cause the computers to read the new
year as "00," which will probably be interpreted as the year 1900 in some
situations. This could cause computer systems to shut down or make mistakes. With
computers involved in almost every aspect of our lives, there is some fear of economic
collapse and worse -- such as long term power failures or airplanes running into each
other. I hadn’t given this a lot of thought until my adventure at the grocery store
last night.
We were getting short on desirable food (no junk food) so my wife, the boys and I drove
into Lincoln to do some shopping. When we arrived at the checkout aisles with a cart load,
there were long lines at every lane. There had been a computer crash, so the digital cash
registers didn’t work. There were at least 75 carts of food and well over 100 people
waiting. I know that because I spent part of the hour’s wait counting them. To get
people through line, the checkers had a handheld calculator and relied on the memory and
honesty of the checkers and customers to remember the food prices. Because of the
computerized system, not very many of the products actually had the price listed on them.
It was inconvenient, but it wasn’t a disaster. In fact, it had a positive effect. If
neither the clerk nor the customer could remember the price, the clerk guessed on the low
side. Also, the clerk didn’t figure the sales tax on the non-food items, so we ended
up saving at least $10-15 on the bill.
When I was five years old, we moved to the country. Due to the closing of the sale on
my parents’ home in Lincoln, we had to move before the water, electricity or septic
was finished in our new country home. We also were 1/4 mile off the highway, and the road
back to our home wasn’t rocked yet. A week later on Oct, 8, 1970, it snowed 8 inches.
It was several months before all the utilities were finished. We look back on the
experience as a fun time that gave us a glimpse into what life was like for our ancestors.
It wasn’t all fond memories. Let me assure you that using the wide outdoors as a
bathroom in a blizzard -- freezing wind blowing on a little boy’s bare behind --
isn’t one of my happier memories. I guess it did give me a better understanding of
the often-used polite euphemism explaining a brief departure to another room, "I must
answer the call of nature."
These two personal stories illustrate the depth of Y2K as a technical problem. It is a
real problem that will cause inconveniences like the computer failure. But, even if it
lasts for awhile, it won’t be any more harmful than my short-term experience of
living without modern conveniences.
Cliff Chaney, a good friend of mine, is a computer expert and Technical Director of
Information Services for a large insurance company in Lincoln. Cliff has the ability to
explain technical things in a way that I can understand and puts it into the bigger
societal picture better than anybody else I know. Cliff feels that irrational people are
the real fear. They could turn what is a small technological and societal problem into a
real crisis. He says;
Y2K is "real," I suppose. My biggest concern, though, is the
effect it has on people, not computers. For example, people are concerned that banks will
be effected by Y2K on 1/1/2000. This is a valid concern, to a point. I am absolutely
convinced that the banks will continue to be operational at all times. Will there be minor
problems? Well, maybe accessing overseas accounts or perhaps an ATM or two, but I
guarantee that funds will continue to be transferred and balances won’t suddenly
disappear.
However, people are so concerned that many are planning on withdrawing a significant
portion of their savings in order to be "prepared" for Y2K. I’m no
economics major, but I know that banks don’t have enough reserve to handle that, and
the result would be a run on the banks. Now, put me as a reasonably sane, rational,
informed person into this situation. I see it for what it is, but what’s my defense?
All I can do, if I’m concerned enough, is withdraw my money and wait for it to
happen. I suddenly become part of the problem. It is a real snowball effect.
If you follow closely what is going on with crisis management groups in the government
(such as the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) and the National Guard), you
will see that they are preparing for just this type of event, where people panic and cause
riots. Public anxiety risks being flamed by the religious implications stemming from many
Christian, Jew and pagan religious apocalyptic predictions for the coming of the new
millennium, which I believe doesn’t actually occur until 2001. The result is that a
minor nuisance could be turned into a disaster, if we don’t inform ourselves and
others about the reality of the situation.
This reality that rational people need to spread is that Y2K is simply a minor problem.
Computers crash every day, including in utilities and airports. We even have power
failures on a regular basis that are due to computer glitches. However, disaster
doesn’t occur because they all have manual overrides. In banks, Certificate of
Deposits, mortgages, and other transactions are already being issued with maturity rates
far well into the next century. The computers that handle these records have no problem
with this, so there is no reason to believe that there will be any serious technical
disaster. If enough people will have common sense and spread the word in time, there
should be no catastrophic results due to the Y2K problem.
If panic does set in next New Year’s Eve, I suggest you remember the lesson taught
by tycoon John D. Rockefeller. Instead of throwing himself out a window when the famous
stock market crash happened in 1929 (precipitating the Great Depression), Rockefeller
invested much of his money in what seemed, then, to be worthless stocks. He held on to
them. When the stock market finally turned around, he ended up even wealthier than before.
Of course, he had been smart enough to understand the situation and hadn’t
overextended himself like those who lost their shirts when the crash came. That is why we
need to educate ourselves now in order to be prepared to make right decisions, if the
doomsday predictions become an unwarranted self-fulfilling prophecy. I guarantee that the
con men selling Y2K "survival kits" that I see advertised all over the Internet
will be laughing all the way to the bank while you are taking out your money to give to
them.
