From today's MEET THE PRESS --
msnbc.com
(C.K.H. -- nice to see you are still around)
MR. RUSSERT: And we're back. Pat Robertson, looking ahead to 1999, there's great fear of something called “The Millennium Bug,” the Y2K problem...
REV. ROBERTSON: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: ...where at the end of the year computers will, rather than turn to the year 2000, go to the year 1900. One of your fellow religious broadcasters said this may be God's instrument to shake this nation. Do you believe that?
REV. ROBERTSON: Well, I think you might call it more appropriately “The Revolt of the Nerds.” I think the techies are going to have the last revenge on society.
But it's a very serious thing, Tim. The FAA isn't prepared. The IRS is hopelessly behind. Our government agencies may well be out of money. And, you know, the year 2000 begins in the federal budget October 1, 1999, and there's something else September 9, 1999, means end of file on a computer, 9/9/99. So we're looking for some serious problems, and if suppliers don't fulfill their obligations, the just-in-time inventory system, giant corporations, like General Motors, will be unable to make cars. Some of the electric utilities might not work. The nuclear power, for example, in France, 70 percent of their power comes from nuclear, and they are very sensitive to any kind of disruption indicating that maintenance is delayed, and so it's an extremely important situation. There are about 50 billion little microchips in the industry of the world, and it's without question is going to give us a serious depression, and it's just a question of how long it's going to last. But I think the stock market will have a real serious tumble, beginning maybe the end of '99 and certainly into the year 2000.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Moynihan, the Y2K computer glitch. Could it cause Depression, as Reverend Robertson suggests?
SEN. MOYNIHAN: Could have done. We've got to it in time. I'd like to acknowledge from my part, and many others would agree, John Westergard, a New York financial analyst, brought it down to Washington about three years ago. We have a select committee in the Senate, ably headed by Bob Bennett of Utah. We've been up to Wall Street and met with them, and the banks. They seem to be on top of it.
Most of our federal departments are on top of it. But the Defense Department has so many programs, it's difficult to handle. Steve Horn, in the House, gives out a report card, a very able one. We know we have the problem. We will manage it. I do not know what the French will do, and much less what the Soviet rocketry will do. And perhaps, Mike McCurry would tell us, but I'm not sure we're not cleared for the information.
MR. RUSSERT: Mike McCurry, there are suggestions, do not schedule international air flight on the first of the year, don't schedule surgery. You could really have a worldwide collapse.
MR. McCURRY: Well, I don't know, this is a little beyond my understanding of eschatology and the end time, but I don't think it's going to happen.
MR. RUSSERT: But Al Gore's the science specialist. Won't he be blamed for this?
MR. McCURRY: Look, I think it is true that we have done a better job as the United States of America addressing this problem than other countries in the world. My greatest fear is that some of the other major industrialized countries, when the Clinton administration raised this, brought it up at some of these international powwows that they have, couldn't get much reaction from other countries that should have been paying attention. I think—I agree with Senator Moynihan, our efforts to deal with the government's Y2K problem are in good, capable hands. John Coscan at ONB is doing a very good job, I think. But, you know, we are going to have to all hunker down, maybe, next New Year's. |
