The Year 2000 computer crisis is serious, and every effort must be made to correct the faulty code, wherever appropriate.

"Wherever appropriate", how can such a statement be made in the context of Y2K. It is the end of civilization as we know it, the apocalyptic crash of the information age. It is a crisis that will cost $360 to $600 billion to fix, with a litigation explosion estimated at over $3 trillion dollars. The Code is Broken, and we have run out of time!

Never has their been a more vivid example of "The Emperors Suit of Clothes". Yes, some of the key code, on many of the computers needs fixing! Not all, not everywhere.

Yes, there are serious consequences for any Bank, financial organization, insurance company or a business that needs a wide spread of date fields. Yes, there are consequences for entities that do not identify and change, or by-pass embedded systems with date problems. But the selling of this simple, yet widespread problem, has taken on religious proportions.

"New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris will all be wracked by massive civil unrest, food riots on the streets, months without electricity, water, telephone, no transportation, hospitals closed and people dying in the streets."

But why are the Doomsayers, as opposed to the genuine Y2K speakers, mounting platforms around the United States, and to a lesser extent around the rest of the world, to predict Armageddon.

Well for one thing it sells books, videos, panic investments, Gold and a whole array of money-making opportunities. Big time! When else, since the threat of a nuclear holocaust in the 1960,s, can you unload survivalist manuals, RV plots in the wilderness, and crates of dehydrated military surplus survival rations, and reports that say nothing.

Never before has their been such an opportunity to create doom and gloom, and maximize profits from a frightened public.

There has to be a deficit of leadership for this to occur, and the Clinton Administration demonstrates that lying is cool, deceit is good, and personal gratification comes above national responsibility. But they are not alone in Washington. Leadership and accurate communication is generally in short supply, being replaced by polls and focus groups.

What is not in short supply is the number of "Y2K Guru’s" who create "User Groups", "Mailing Lists" and every communication medium from newsletters to radio programs, from web sites to conferences, to profit and scare a confused public into believing and buying into Apocalypse 2000. They are long on emotion, and short on facts.

Again, the remediation of corrupted code is a serious problem, that needs to either be fixed, replaced, or removed from the critical path.

The pundits appear to be in a time warp. They are stuck in the early, glory days of awareness, when the task appeared insurmountable, the scope enormous, and the resources non-existent. The media revel in giving air time to sensational claims of the collapse of society. The same TV producers like bigamists, dead-beat dads, wife-beating, child abusers and gay and lesbian Hells Angels, refused credit for a new Harley. The more extreme, the more air time. The intoxication of media takes over from reality. But these media-drunks, willing to say anything to grab a few seconds of airtime, are not the problem. It is the slick speculators and professional doomsayers, who should be avoided.

They have perfected an audience-grabbing presentation that truly amazes and brings an awesome audience to near panic. At this point they can pitch everything from Gold, to survivalist doctrine, to religious escape.

"Six hundred billion dollars to fix this problem, yes folks that is billion with a capital B" brings gasps from those who can barely switch on a computer, less understand what a line of code costs to find and rectify. Their slick PR machine tags the "Gurus" and arranges regular appearances on chat shows, and book-signing opportunities. How did it happen this way?

The entire case for the cost of Y2K is based on the "Gartner Guess" of $360 billion to $600 billion dollars to fix it. The term "Gartner Guess" is not meant in a derogatory fashion. They took a stab at a completely unknown number, and came up with a good guess, giving the information they possessed. They had to come up with something, they make millions of dollars from their selling their reports, and subscribers were clamoring for figures. Unfortunately this guess is now etched in stone, along with the Ten Commandments. It has no basis in current statistics.

The other figure etched in stone is the $1 to $3 trillion dollars in litigation. That has got legions of lawyers salivating, just as the earlier figure brought every software developer and consultant out of the woodwork.

"We gotta get some of the action" was on the lips of thousands of entrepreneurs.

For most the dream has turned into a nightmare. The bonanza was nowhere near as great as predicted. Consultants and tool-vendors sprang up overnight. They created hyperbolic cash and earnings projections. But to their dismay, they found most of the work was been done "in-house", and there were few opportunities for outside consultants. Their predictions of $15 - 20 dollars to search a line of code, by 1998 has, in many cases dropped to 20 - 30 cents a line. Most have stabilized at $1.50, far below predictions. But many speculators made their money with inflated stock prices, especially as the remediation effort started. They sold stock, not product.

These speculators created relationships with speakers, and Y2K commentators. Their message, "Y2K will be the greatest investment opportunity since the railroads. Buy stock in these companies, they hold the key to the broken code." Coming from the platform, radio or TV, it made sense. Someone had to fix the hundreds of millions of lines of code. These new companies seemed a sure fire bet.

Well that didn’t work. The stock rocketed, made the prophets money, then crashed as the figures predicting a remediation bonanza did not meet expectations. There is a sucker born every minute.

The next lucrative killing field was the fear that Banks will freeze, and ultimately crash, paralyzed by date-insensitive computers. Cash would be unavailable. Liquidate, or better still, convert to Gold. The highly regulated and scrutinized banks have pumped hundreds of millions into the problems, tested, and remediated their mission critical systems. The global economy is more a threat to them than Y2K.

That did not deter the speculators. They toured the country, filled the airwaves, and spammed the web with predictions of a global run on the banks, and the need to buy Gold. Surprise they just happened to have a recommended source of gold investments available, usually waiting at the back of the room, or renting several suites in the hotel. Gold bullion is one thing, old gold coins are another.

The "mother of all" speculations is the high-profit, high-commission game of numismatic gold and silver coins. Already older investors are being frightened into parting with their life savings on schemes to invest in gold coins. They are frightened with stories of Y2K meltdown, the current value of gold bullion is quickly flashed by their eyes, the future perceived value, as a percentage of the first figure mentioned, and a sales pitch for a dubious over-valued coin is closed. They have paid $20,000 for $300 worth of gold.

With such high profit margins these salesmen can offer free seminars, or free speaking engagements for workshops and conferences. It is worth it just to scare the audience, and net a handful of unwary prospects.

Accredited, genuine speakers charge a fee for speaking. It covers research, time and presentation skills. (Non-profits and charities are an exception, we all do these for nothing.) When a speaker flies across the country, and stays in a hotel at his own expense, and delivers a speech free of charge, there is a hidden agenda.

These "Pseudo-speakers" are usually salesmen, scam artists, or lawyers.

Most States restrict advertisements from lawyers, and appearing at the podium, as a Y2K expert, extolling the need to have an expert Y2K lawyer, to protect against the $3 trillion dollar litigation landslide, that will potentially destroy every manager, and officer of the company is a sure-fire way of getting new clients. There are genuine lawyers, who have freely been involved in Y2K for many years. They have given their advice and guidance to Y2K mailing lists and websites.

These vultures are not of that ilk, they are the Italian-suited, fresh-from-lawschool variety, making a name for themselves. When asked, few have been involved in Y2K for more than a couple of months, and their experience and knowledge comes from searching Yahoo!

Only Congress, and the individual State legislatures can solve this problem. It appears they will.

Everyone with a investment, either in gold, property, stocks, or ideas is getting on the Y2K Train. Not only in the financial marketplace, but in the areas of religious beliefs.

Seeing a golden opportunity, the religious zealots used their persuasive training to fan the glowing embers of panic. "It is a sure sign of modern society collapsing, the end of government, the rape and pillage of your family and home by the filthy forces of fornication. It is predicted in the religious writings, and in many of the scriptures. Subscribe NOW to my newsletter and prepare your family for eternal salvation."

Interesting how, if the world is ending on 31^st December, 1999, many of these religious newsletters offer 2 and 3 year subscriptions. Maybe the Almighty may need to let the deadline slip for the apocalyptic ending. He has the authority to do that.

These are not to be confused by many religious organizations, that are genuinely concerned about the plight of the less fortunate, because of Y2K and the overall global economy. Many of these organizations, such as Pat Robertson, and CBN, have done a great service, by making communities aware of the problem, and creating a community helping each other.

But most of these religious factions are only selling print, audio or video information, and a message that has metamorphosized from a Nuclear Armageddon to a Computer Armageddon. So long as they don’t all commit suicide strapped to an IBM clone, they are harmless. Ideas can be changed.

The survivalists are far from harmless, and though they have a point of view they passionately believe in, many are offering an option that is highly dangerous for the unprepared city dweller. Around the USA there are "Y2K Survival Villages" springing up, complete with a years supply of dehydrated food, tools to dig a well, fire making materials, and of course an AK47 to kill Bambi and Thumper, as well as any raiding party from the towns and cities that are starving, and blacked out from the Millennium Bug.

The desire to move to Montana, or rural Texas and protect farm and family from the corrupt, evil government, armed to the teeth, is an option that has to be respected. It is a spreading way of life, especially for disillusioned Vietnam Vets. President Clinton, and a "Best Money Can Buy" Congress, do nothing to dissuade these independent thinkers. But it takes years of dedication, and training to be able to survive under these harsh, lonely conditions.

Unfortunately many "City Slickers" with more money than sense, 4 wheel drive urban assault vehicles, condos in Manhattan, and million dollar stock options, are signing on to this "to the hills" concept. It may have sold books for Ed Yourdan, but it not a viable alternative to staying put, and pulling together to minimizing the collective effects of Y2K.

The "Y2K Experts" should reconsider the message of "March to the sound of gunfire….. Oh by the way I’m out of here, away to my luxury farm in the country, paid for by you dumb idiots" message. Amazingly many self-styled leaders openly admit they will desert their followers, and retire on their Y2K profits. If you are wrong, you can run, but you can’t hide.

This "doom and gloom" approach does not do justice to the hundreds of thousands of devoted IT professionals, working long hours to find, fix, test and make the systems compliant.

"The code is broken, we must fix it" scream the doomsayers from their podiums.

"We have fixed it" gleefully announce the professionals, after months of long, hard work.

"All lies, dammed lies, the code is broken, the sky is falling! Read my book, and come to my seminar, I will prove they are part of a conspiracy to cover up a disaster". Retort the doomsayers. These disaster trigger points come, and go. Fortunately for us all.

Disillusioned, rejected, and depressed the programmers feel burnt-out and feel their contributions are not appreciated. When we need maximum effort we see a slow-down.

It is as was spoken in "Cool Hand Luke", a problem of communications.

Some problems are accidental, not understanding the scope of the problem, some intentional, to scam the public and profit from chaos, and some downright negligent and anti-social, led by nit-picking lawyers. If there was "truth-in-reporting" from companies, government departments and organizations, we could have fixed this problem years ago. Unfortunately sleaze-bag lawyers hide behind splitting hairs, and hiding truths. But that is the example of the leader of the free world, so it must be OK for corporate advisers. Confuse and delay.

The figures given to suppliers, customers, users and shareholders are all over the place. Everyone is drowning in a sea of compliance demands, multi page questionnaires and confusing statements. It appears that many spokespersons work backward from the desired results. Eventually the truth will come out, and valuable time has been lost playing legal games. What is wrong with a system that spend more time and effort finding a ambiguous definition, that will not stand up in court, than fixing the problem in the first place.

What happened to honesty and integrity?

The by-product of these legal maneuvers is to allow the speculators to get a foothold. If banks had spent the same amount of cash on awareness workshops, they spend on legal counselors, the potential bank crisis would have been neutralized. There is enough problems around the world to derail the banking system, without the known, and predictable Year 2000 crisis. It should have been a non-event, open, and explained to all. These banks need to grasp the fact that the message is not getting out, that the banks can weather Year 2000. The same goes for power companies, railroads, airports and airlines, and of course the Government.

Nobody trusts what the Government Spokesperson says anyway.

So let us either fix this Y2K problem, work around it, or neutralize it’s effects on our way of life. Let’s stop using this confusing problem to preach doom and destruction, so we can sell a few coins, books, conferences or videos. Facts, just the facts!

Where there is a pothole in the information superhighway, tell the public to take care. Where the highway has been repaired, and is open for long-term use, let’s announce that to the world. If we need to tell an audience that things look brighter, but we still have a way to go, let us do that.

Let us praise those who worked long, boring hours, correcting the problem. And let us expose those who procrastinated and turned a serious problem into a critical problem. After the event, there will be trials in the court of public opinion. It is better to be honest now, than be pilloried by public anger, for hiding the truth till it was too late.

Ask speakers, writers and broadcasters about their affiliations with vendors, and where they derive their sources of income. It’s OK to make a profit, have advertisers and sponsors, but be honest and come clean in this very emotive issue. In the media there is a defining line between Editorial and Advertising. Make sure the audience knows which is which, who owns and controls publications and websites, and when they become fronts for commercial interests. We owe that to our public.

Y2K is a totally correctable issue, with 30 years notice. There are worse problems looming on the horizon, we cannot predict, nor know when they will strike. But then, you can’t turn those into a good old well-planned scam, to get-rich-quick!

Let us make Y2K a non-event. Please!