Crossfire
Year 2000: Will the World's Computers Crash?
Aired July 14, 1998 - 7:30 p.m. ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAT BUCHANAN, CO-HOST (voice-over): The clock strikes 12 midnight, New Year's Eve, ringing in the year 2000, will the worlds computers crash? Even presidents are nervous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any business that approaches the new year armed only with a bottle of champagne and a noisemaker is likely to have a very big hangover on New Year's morning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BUCHANAN: Should we be worried or is the doomsday industry just trying to make another killing?
ANNOUNCER: From Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press. On the right Pat Buchanan. In the crossfire, Democratic congressman of Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, ranking minority member on the Government Information and Technology Subcommittee. And Peter De Jager, co- author of "Managing 00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computing Crisis."
BUCHANAN: Good evening, and welcome to CROSSFIRE. At midnight, New Year's Eve, as 1999 becomes year 2000, many of the world's millions of computers may crash and wreak havoc on a computer-run world. That is the doomsday scenario some predict because of the so- called millennium bug.
Until lately, most computers were not programmed to shift from 1999 to 2000, but only from '99 to '00. The confusion this will cause could affect every computer-run system from stock markets to credit cards to your bank account and ATM, and from computers aboard missiles to air traffic control systems.
Yesterday Wall Street began a test run to see if its computer upgrades have made it ready for 2000. They're calling it a success, but we won't know for sure for weeks. Today President Clinton said the government is getting on top of the problem, and business better do the same. How serious is what they call Y2K for year 2000?
Peter De Jager, author of "Managing 00" and "Doomsday 2000" said it could mean global catastrophe. Congressman Dennis Kucinich, on the House committee to deal with the problem, says the White House and Al Gore are on top of it and the government will be ready. In 17 months we'll find out -- Bill.
BILL PRESS, CO-HOST (voice-over): Yes we will, Pat. Right. Mr. Jager, good evening, welcome to "CROSSFIRE."
PETER DE JAGER, CO-AUTHOR, "MANAGING 00," "SURVIVING THE YEAR 2000": Good evening.
PRESS: Could I ask you a personal question first?
DE JAGER: Sure.
PRESS: I just have to notice this. I mean, is this a doomsday tie you're wearing?
DE JAGER: It's just a sense of humor. If you can't laugh at this we may as well all just slit our wrists.
PRESS: Well, that means you're look a walking billboard for doomsday. You have got your clock -- doomsday clock out there. Let me ask you a question, just so that everybody, including our viewers and us are up to speed. Can you tell me as basically and as quickly as you can what is this Y2K year 2000 problem -- what's it all about?
DE JAGER: It's incredibly simple to describe. In our computer systems, not just the hardware, but the programs itself and our data bases -- we've stored the year as two digits, not four. We did that to save space back when space was expensive. My birth year is stored as '55.
Today if I ask the computer how old I am, it goes 98 minus 55, Peter you're 43 years old -- don't look a day over 20, but you're 43. In the year 2000 the computer will do exactly the same calculation. What's this year? Zero zero minus 55. I am minus 55 years old. You know and I know that's stupid. The computer doesn't.
PRESS: OK.
DE JAGER: And the computer will make calculations and decisions based upon that incorrect calculation.
PRESS: Now given that, what's the worst case scenario for right after midnight on December 31, 1999 when all of these computers suddenly go kerplunk, what happens?
DE JAGER: The absolute worst case is this, we do nothing from today.
PRESS: Right.
DE JAGER: Today our systems are broken. Understand that. The code is broken. That is why your IRS is spending one billion dollars U.S., to fix it. They're not fixing it because I am a good speaker. They're fixing it because they went, looked and found a problem?
PRESS: But what would happen? If we do nothing, what happens? DE JAGER: What happens is that society, our economy comes to a screeching halt. We live in the age of computers. We depend upon them. If they're not fixed we lose everything. The stock market goes to zero in one day.
PRESS: And? Is that it? The stock market...
(LAUGHTER)
DE JAGER: Is that it?
PRESS: I mean, that's a lot. But I mean, what about planes? What about elevators? What about home computers?
DE JAGER: We will lose lives if we don't fix this.
BUCHANAN: All right. Dennis, you have said there's a lot of alarmist nonsense being put on out there. But this fellow Edward Yardini (ph), he was a respected economist says there's a 60 percent chance we're going to have major recession as a consequence of this.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE: First of all, I wouldn't want to downplay the concerns that are being expressed. There's certainly a challenge which is facing the government and the economy.
However, it needs to be said that both the public and the private sector have taken steps to be able to get on top of it in critical areas of the economy. For example, the federal government in the area of Social Security, Veterans Administration, EPA and NASA feel confident today that they will address it. They're working in the other areas. This is something that they know they have to get on top of.
BUCHANAN: You have praised your chairman, Dennis, Congressman Steve Horn, said he's done a great job.
KUCINICH: Yes, he has.
BUCHANAN: Let me quote Steve Horn on this matter. "we have been playing catchup. It should have been done more systematically. Where's Al Gore on this? What's he been doing? I think he's making a big mistake by not being more prominent. He's the guy who is going to take it." Here, Mr. Horn, the fellow you praise and have shown great leadership -- he is obviously deeply alarmed that the administration seems to have been asleep at the switch.
KUCINICH: As the ranking member on that subcommittee I can tell you that Congressman Horn is aware of the dimensions of the problem, but when we get into the politics of it, I don't think that it's well placed to try to make this a partisan issue. Because the fact of the matter is, the American people expect Democrats and Republicans to work together on this to come up with a solution.
BUCHANAN: All right. Agreed.
KUCINICH: The president said as much today.
BUCHANAN: Let me just give you one tiny problem Bill mentioned. Look, I know that you have been at airports or I have gotten there when the word comes out, the computers are down and you have got a hundred people lined up yelling their heads off about missing their plane and they're writing tickets long hand, or typing them up or calling somebody else. I mean, that's one computer goes down.
Can you imagine if you multiply that a hundred times simply at airports?
KUCINICH: Well, the computers you're speak of could be private sector computers. And certainly in the private sector -- that's one of the reasons why the president used the bully pulpit was to communicate to the private sector we have a problem. We're interdependent, public and private sector and we need the public sector to move at pace with solutions as well. And they are. In airlines, banking, in other areas -- I know that you're familiar with
the...
DE JAGER: Absolutely. There's no doubt companies are working on this. And we're very, very active. And even government is working on this. But working on a project is no guarantee the project will be delivered on time? How many times has the FAA delivered a project on time, or the DMV, or how many times has Microsoft delivered Windows on time as per the schedule. That's the risk.
Here's question to ask: over the last three years in our organization what percent of your projects were delivered on time?
Optimism is good, confidence you'll deliver on time is good, but until we're there we have no guarantee.
BUCHANAN: Let me tell you something. I have been doing the show two and a half years, every day we have started on time. When you got a deadline, it seems to me, you get there. But let me just say, Dennis just mentioned something...
KUCINICH: Wall Street is taping and you got the second one right.
DE JAGER: Thank you very much.
PRESS: Wall Street is working on this problem. As the president said, the government agents are working on this problem. You have got the smartest minds in the world up in Silicon Valley in California.
DE JAGER: Which created the problem in the first place, they're not that smart.
BUCHANAN: Of course they did. But you can't tell me, I'm a total skeptic on this, I think this whole thing is a total fraud. You can't tell me they're not going to fix it.
DE JAGER: Microsoft would like to get Windows out every time. They had firm, hard deadlines, and they've missed every single one. If the best software company in the world cannot deliver per schedule, then there is no guarantee. And to believe so is naive.
KUCINICH: I would like to add that there are myths about this. One is the myth that it will fix itself. It will not fix itself. It's going to take a concerted effort on the part of the private sector and government to make it work.
BUCHANAN: Dennis, let's take the computers we've sold abroad. Say the Chinese have bought them. Are allies have bought them, maybe even the Russians have got them. Their military, their economy, their financial systems all depend on these American-made computers. All of these American-made chips, all of them programed with ridiculous information, what happens to them when the clock strikes 12:00? It seems to me there's no way they're going to be
prepared if the United States, the most advanced nation, is looking at a 60 percent shot of a recession, those fellows are going right into the tank.
KUCINICH: Well, the solution, obviously, cannot be limited in terms of the United States of America, North America. That's why the White House has already taken steps to have its team involved with other nations where these products are.
BUCHANAN: But it's a fact of the matter. Look, if we're on a deadline, semi-panic, things aren't going to be ready here, maybe there. Can you imagine how far behind those people are?
DE JAGER: The central telecommunications agency in Russia has just been given the task on this. They recently announced in Reuters in an interview that they began their project in May of this year.
BUCHANAN: Look, (INAUDIBLE) that's it.
PRESS: Peter, let me ask you this. Let's be real honest here, OK? I mean I have looked a little bit into you and you have got the book out. I mean, you have got a Web site where you're selling everything from videotapes for $75 to watches to maybe even to ties. I don't know. To handbooks dealing with this. I mean, you're a one- man gloom and doom industry. You don't want this problem to go away because you'd be out of a job.
DE JAGER: On the contrary and I really resent that. This has to be solved. What we want is for it to solve. What we want is for people to take this thing seriously. What we want is on January 1 to get me back on the show and say Peter, nothing happened and my job will be done and the jobs of several hundred other people. The reality is that the IRS, for example, is spending a billion dollars. Why are they spending that money? Because I am a good
speaker? Come on. Give them some credit.
PRESS: Well, I mean, I have read that you get $7,500 for a speech. That's more...
KUCINICH: How much do you get? PRESS: That's more than Novak and Buchanan get.
DE JAGER: Don't give me that. PRESS: Here's this page -- half a page ad that you, yourself took out promoting yourself in "The Wall Street Journal" today. It has your Web site and everything here selling yourself as Dr. Doom, aren't you?
DE JAGER: Please. Let's get the facts right. Let's not do another sarin on air.
PRESS: Touche.
DE JAGER: This was paid for by "The Wall Street Journal." This was not an ad I took out. And they gave me a byline.
PRESS: All your information is up here, right?
DE JAGER: Absolutely.
PRESS: Aren't you making a living by scaring people to death?
DE JAGER: Yes. I am making a living by telling them the truth. Now if the truth scares them, please don't shoot the messenger.
KUCINICH: And I would say -- I would someday in response to this line of questioning or accusations...
PRESS: Questioning.
KUCINICH: ... that it's important for people to be aware that there's a problem and that this gentleman I just met just now certainly...
BUCHANAN: He seems to be learning folks to what -- something serious is going...
KUCINICH: I think that's important. I think it's important to do that.
BUCHANAN: Dennis look -- let me concede that look we ought to work together on it.
KUCINICH: Right.
BUCHANAN: It is serious pro, but look, let's take our census. We tried to count 260 million people over a year or something, and we never get it right. Now there are trillions of little chips...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: ... in all of these computers or tens of billions in these computers. How are you going to get all of these little glitches, mistaken and things changed unless we take a lot of these computers out and say look, out and brand new computer systems. Isn't that the meaning? What we're going to come to, all these computer systems that have bugs in them, probably are better off letting them go? KUCINICH: I could be corrected, but it's really a
small percentage of the electronic equipment out there that's not -- that is not Y2K compliant. I think something like 160 million out of four billion. Do those figures sound correct to you?
DE JAGER: Those numbers are close.
KUCINICH: And so that being the case, there is in some cases, if there isn't a fix for the equipment, people may want to do that but we're not advocating that. They need to contact the manufacturer.
They need to see if the designers of the software are still around in case they have found a way to fix the software. There are Web sites available where people can get information about fixes for their particular...
BUCHANAN: People are going to make a lot of money off this, aren't they?
KUCINICH: Well, yes.
PRESS: They are.
KUCINICH: Yes, they are. But we're looking at a solution, and if I can make one more comment...
PRESS: Real quickly.
KUCINICH: The same energy which caused this country to come together for great technological leaps in modern history, we need that energy now for a fix on this Y2K.
PRESS: All right. Hold onto that energy because we're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to need more of it. Folks there may be a silver lining to this cloud. What if the IRS loses all of our tax records. We'll talk about that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. With the year 2000 only 17 months away, will government or computers experts fix the world's computers in time to avoid virtual meltdown, or will we be hit by the Hale-Bopp Comet first?
Debating the reality and threat of Y2K tonight, Peter De Jager, author of "Managing '00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computer Crisis," and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, ranking minority member of the House Management Information and Technology Subcommittee -- Pat.
BUCHANAN: Dennis, we've conceded here that we have got a very serious problem that could go all the way to being a catastrophe or a calamity. Now, Mr. Technology in this administration, when he's not out saying the internal combustion engine is the greatest threat we face, is Al Gore. Why has Al Gore not been out front on this issue? Why has he not grabbed this issue? Why has he not been the one raising the alarm?
KUCINICH: Well, I think it's appropriate for White House to take a leadership position and that's what we saw demonstrated today with the president and the vice president together. Vice President Gore has taken the leadership on technology issues. This Y2K issue is much bigger than the White House. It's -- the whole of the society. And I think that what we're looking towards in the next year and a half is a concerted effort by the public and the
private sector to focus on the problem. The problem isn't going to come from those who are focusing on it, Pat, it's going to come from those who aren't.
BUCHANAN: That's exactly what I am talking about. And a guy who hasn't been focusing on it is Mr. Technology, himself. You know, he wrote this big book about saving the environment and the automobile is dreadful. Why has he not focused on the number one technological problem the administration and the country face? Even you haven't mentioned a thing he has done. Was he standing behind Clinton today?
KUNINICH: He was right with the president...
BUCHANAN: Right there.
KUNINICH: ... supporting this effort. He's out there on it. He has the understanding of the technology issues. And the thing we don't want to happen on with this is to turn this into a partisan fight, and try to get into partisan pointing fingers.
BUCHANAN: We don't want to do that?
KUNINICH: I don't think it's good for the country...
DE JAGER: You don't ignore a partisan fight by ignoring the fight, which is what's been happening. No one has been addressing this in government.
KUNINICH: Well, we're here now.
DE JAGER: Yeah. We're here now. Seventeen months out we're here now, thank God.
KUNINICH: I wouldn't say no one, because Social Security -- May I?
PRESS: Sure.
KUNINICH: Social Security administration, did you know that in 1989...
DE JAGER: Oh, 1989 they started their project.
KUNINICH: Thank you.
DE JAGER: However, they had a little problem. They had a programmer go in and fix it. There was no budgeting, there was no project methodology, there was no project at all. There was no project manager. Yes, they started, but only because something broke and they ad hoc fixed it over self-years. That's not, to me, a project.
PRESS: Let me ask you, Peter, you're a resident of Canada, correct.
DE JAGER: Yes.
PRESS: So I don't necessarily want to get you involved in domestic, American politics, but just looking at it, I mean, Dick Armey has a Web site. He blames the White House for doing nothing. Steve Forbes is running radio ads, blaming the White House for doing nothing. Steve Horn's had some committees where he's essentially blamed the White House for doing nothing. I mean, this blame game, to what extent does that help fix the problem?
DE JAGER: Doesn't help it at all.
PRESS: All right. Then let me ask you my next question. We saw yesterday at least somebody is doing something. Wall Street had this great big test, they advanced the clocks ahead, they ran all these programs through to see what would happen. It was Mr. -- let me see, Arthur Thomas, who is head of the committee for Wall Street, after the thing was over who said things -- project looked -- the tests looked pretty good. Here's what he said. Let's listen
to his quote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARTHUR THOMAS, YEAR 2000 STEERING COMMITTEE: I think it's a very good sign, and the fact that we have discovered no Y2K bugs thus far in the test program, I think, is very -- gives us a great deal to be optimistic about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESS: So there's something to cheer about in this.
DE JAGER: Oh, absolutely. The fact that they have done street- wide testing is absolutely crucial to the whole process. But as he said -- and his words were "Just as we've have started." We need to complete the entire thing. There needs to be a sense of urgency and that is |
