According to the Committee of Government Management, Information and
Technology, as of August 1998, less than 10% of companies questioned, had begun
looking at these embedded processors for testing. Many of these processors are
hard or impossible to reach. These account for some 600+ satellites orbiting
above, which operate all ATM's, cell phones, pagers and airline guidance
systems. Many believe that the public isn't being revealed the facts
intentionally. They feel that the government is keeping it quite to prevent
widespread panic. If fear spread that business could collapse worldwide due to
Y2K, there might be a preemptive collapse due to a crash of stock markets and
banks. It's a lose: lose situation. Even if 20% of investors pulled their money
out of the U.S. stock markets, there would still be a complete collapse. This
report has been made several times by different market analysists. Another
worst-cased scenario would be if everyone wanted to pull cash out of banks.
Currently there is only 4% of the actual secured amount is out in currency. This
leaves every American with only $68 dollars each. In September, President
Clinton announced that the U.S. will be 100% compliant by 2000. That same month
the Fed announced, for the first time, that they will boost the amount of
currency in the US by 50 billion (1/3).
This was done in case anyone wanted to have extra cash for the year 2000. If
there isn't any worry why make more money. Another report announced by the FAA,
reported that they too will be 100% ready for Y2K. However, IBM, the maker of
the 40 computers operating the FAA, replied that the computers are so out of
date that they must be replaced. Today, every single utility and good we buy at
the store will be affected if something isn't done. Every piece is so
inter-connected that even minor failures could lead to big failures. This was
just proven in San Francisco. Close to 1,000,000 people lost power when a
construction crew tripped a breaker 40 miles from the bay area. According to the
North American Electric Reliability Council, all of North America is powered by
more than a thousand powerplants. These are all joined together at 4 main grid
stations to prevent brownouts if one plant goes down. However, if something
should happen to a few power plants, or even worse one of the grids, up to 200
million people could be without power. In fact, they would be left without any
utility for that matter since gas, water and telephone companies require that
same power. How well could man survive if this problem isn't resolved? The real
problem is that no one is really paying close attention to this matter. It seems
that other issues are getting all the ratings, while the millennium keeps
approaching. With a little over a year, and a majority of the people not clued
in, will there be enough time? This will be one of the biggest tests that man
has ever challenged, yet we are the creators of our enemy.
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