At the April 22 meeting in Singapore, John Koskinen, head of the President's Y2K Council, informed delegates from Asian nations and Canada of the looming threats of the millennium bug. He warned them that cross-border contingency plans must soon be formulated. It is clear from his remarks that such plans do not exist yet.

He also pointed out that developing countries have yet to begin repairing y2k. The American public hasn't a clue that this is the case. People do not understand that y2k failures will undermine or even destroy the international division of labor.

It is too late to fix this. Koskinen knows this, as his remarks indicated: "I recently got a memorandum from a developing country noting that they had now held a series of meetings, and they were ready to begin with their assessments. And my first response was, it obviously is a little late to start." He recognizes that in most nations, the work has not begun:

"But we are in a stage now where we need to go beyond awareness and focus on action, which is why I think the APEC Y2K Week is an appropriate focus for all of the APEC countries to begin to take additional steps and actions to deal with the Y2K problems. We only have 254 or 253 days to go, depending on which way you count the last day, but even with that short period of time, much work can still be done. Because even if a country cannot finish all of its work in one of the critical sectors that you're going to be discussing, the work has to be done sometime, so it's important not only to start now, but to continue that work through the rest of this year."

The victims, meaning six billion people, don't see what is about to happen to their income.

He has not departed from the Party Line: big outfits will make it, but small ones won't, despite the fact that big outfits have yet to make it (e.g., the Fortune 1000, according to a recent and unreleased report from Cap Gemini), and small ones can solve it by going back to pen and paper systems. He made it clear that the U.S. government can't bail out local governments in 2000.

". . . we've told our local governments and our state governments that they need to be prepared to handle emergencies on their own, since the federal government can't be everywhere dealing with every problem in light of the large number of problems that we are likely to have."

But most local governments in the U.S. have still done almost nothing to prepare for y2k disruptions.

He even stressed the obvious, which the Red Cross and FEMA have conveniently igored with their 72-hour hurricane scanario:

"Each of these emergency centers is very good at dealing with the standard emergency, which is usually very localized. But what they do not have significant experience in is dealing with a number of otherwise manageable events taken by themselves, which create a major challenge when they occur all at once."

But the underlying theme was this: governments will face an international crisis when the public figures out that a true disaster is immiment. Governments must do something about this.

He got to the bottom line: bank runs. The 300-year experiment in central banking is about to come up empty. The governments of this century have been re-built on the model of the Bank of England (1694), and that model is completely computerized. It is the ultimate just-in-time system: insufficient inventories. Now it is facing its greatest test. Koskinen knows this.

"We also need to share perspectives on how to deal with more general problems that I think all of us face. A growing problem confronting every country is the risk of overreaction by the public, as Mr. Shiina mentioned. It's clear that in the absence of information, people will assume the worst. It's also clear in any country if millions of people change their normal economic activities all at once, we'll have significant problems, even if all of the systems work just fine. No country can afford a lack of confidence that leads to runs on their financial institutions, hoarding of basic supplies, and increased fear."

So, what is his recommended solution? Tell the public about all the great contingency plans governments have. (I am not making this up.)

"Therefore, it's important for all of us to share as much information as we can with the public about the state of our preparedness. . . ."

Their preparedness? It's all over but the shouting.

This is from the United States Information Agency of the U.S. government (May 4).

* * * * * * * * * * *

TRANSCRIPT: KOSKINEN REMARKS TO APEC Y2K SYMPOSIUM

(Stresses need for cross border contingency plans) (6030)

Washington -- John Koskinen, chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, says there is a need to develop Y2K action plans as 1999 progresses -- bringing participants together on a regional and global basis.

Koskinen spoke to delegations attending the APEC Y2K Symposium that opened on April 22 in Singapore to discuss key Y2K issues facing the Asia-Pacific region. Koskinen delivered his remarks via digital videoconference from the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C.

APEC member countries sent representatives to discuss Y2K initiatives and to help set the agenda of issues for the APEC Minister's Conference and the 2nd United Nations National Y2K Coordinators Conference in June.

In his remarks, Koskinen also stressed the need to transform Y2k commitments into deadlines, to move toward focused goals, and to share as much technical information and as many strategies as possible for dealing with specific problems.

He said cross border contingency plans are necessary to prepare for and handle possible failures in information technology in sectors such as customs, telecommunications and electric power grids. Communications networks that are already in existence need to be seen as a resource for instant communication to facilitate information sharing as the actual transition follows the clock around the world on January 1, 2000.

Following is a transcript of Koskinen's remarks and the question-and-answer session that followed.

(begin transcript)

MODERATOR: John Koskinen is Chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. He will speak on the trans-border impacts of Y2K and critical economic infrastructure. Afterward, we will take questions from the floor.

MR. KOSKINEN: Good morning. I'm delighted to be able to use technology to speak with all of you this morning as you gather at a very important symposium. And like Mr. Shiina, I would like to extend my congratulations and thanks to the organizers of this symposium, the governments of Singapore, Canada and Japan.

This meeting is part of a series of regional meetings being held around the world. Next will be the week of May 9 in Ghana for all African countries, and these meetings are being supported by the new International Y2K Cooperation Center, which was developed under the auspices of the United Nations with the support of the World Bank. . . .

And the Center will also work with the steering committee of 11 countries in preparing for the next meeting, which will take place in June at the United Nations of all national Year 2000 coordinators. The meeting in June at the United Nations will build on the work of meetings such as this regional meeting, and reflects across the board the growing recognition internationally of the sweep and seriousness of the Year 2000 problem.

But we are in a stage now where we need to go beyond awareness and focus on action, which is why I think the APEC Y2K Week is an appropriate focus for all of the APEC countries to begin to take additional steps and actions to deal with the Y2K problems. We only have 254 or 253 days to go, depending on which way you count the last day, but even with that short period of time, much work can still be done. Because even if a country cannot finish all of its work in one of the critical sectors that you're going to be discussing, the work has to be done sometime, so it's important not only to start now, but to continue that work through the rest of this year.

I recently got a memorandum from a developing country noting that they had now held a series of meetings, and they were ready to begin with their assessments. And my first response was, it obviously is a little late to start. But my second response was, it's wonderful that that country is ready to start, and is beginning to take the actions that will lead it down the road toward making the transition to the Year 2000 successfully. . . .

And you are going to spend some time in this meeting talking about contingency planning and business continuity planning. And, as Mr. Shiina noted, it's critical that we all begin to spend time on this subject. . . .

What we need to have people understand is that you need to keep working, you need to keep testing, but at the same time, you need to be planning for difficulties that may occur, and particularly those who have started late will at least be able to determine where they know the risks are greatest that they will not complete their work and, therefore, what contingency and business continuity plans are appropriate.

We also need to focus on our emergency response process. It's clear that as noted earlier, the interesting thing about the Year 2000 problem is, it affects everyone everywhere. And, therefore, it is very likely that we will have a series of challenges that will likely occur all at one time. So, in the United States, for example, we expect that our basic infrastructure will hold, that our electric power grids will function, that our telecommunications systems will work effectively, and that our banking systems will not have major difficulties. But at the same time, we expect, as many countries have experienced, that there were risks of failures at the local level, where smaller companies working in the critical infrastructure areas or some of our local governments, will either take no action, or not successful action and, therefore, are at risk of failure as we move into the Year 2000. And, therefore, we've told our local governments and our state governments that they need to be prepared to handle emergencies on their own, since the federal government can't be everywhere dealing with every problem in light of the large number of problems that we are likely to have.

In the U.S., we are dealing with the fact that we are also going to see interesting challenges internationally as well as domestically in response to the Year 2000 transition. So, what we are doing is, at the federal level for the national government, we are surveying all of the existing emergency response centers in our government, which include our local domestic emergency response activities, the emergency response capacity at the Defense Department, at the State Department, in our Energy Department, our Transportation Department, all of them have their own emergency centers, and it's important for us to make sure first that they're prepared to handle the wide number of challenges that they may face.

Each of these emergency centers is very good at dealing with the standard emergency, which is usually very localized. But what they do not have significant experience in is dealing with a number of otherwise manageable events taken by themselves, which create a major challenge when they occur all at once. We are also, therefore, ensuring that beyond each emergency center being able to respond to the range of issues it may have to deal with, that as part of our overall emergency response process, we, in fact, are coordinating the responses of those individual emergency centers. . . .

And similarly, at the international level, we should also obviously expect that we will have a large number, possibly, of what would be manageable failures taken one at a time, which will overwhelm the normal emergency response processes when they happen all at once. So, in contingency planning and emergency response planning, we need to be planning on an individual country basis and on a regional basis for how the country and region will respond without necessarily relying upon the normal international emergency response agencies being available in light of all the possible demands that those agencies may have.

So, thinking about this conference and the other regional conferences going on around the world, it occurred to me that we might think about what can we expect or hope will come out of this meeting. It's clear that I think we must move beyond simply discussing the nature of the problem and its importance or its sweep, because we understand that, I think, at this stage. And we also need to move beyond simply sharing information, although it's very important, about how each country is doing in each sector as a general matter. What we need to do now is I think what this conference is geared up to do, which is to focus in-depth on specific sectors of concern, such as power, telecommunications, transportation, financial services, customs and border issues, and begin to determine what are the common issues that we face in the regions that we're dealing with, and what are the possible solutions that we can arrive at working together?

We also need to share perspectives on how to deal with more general problems that I think all of us face. A growing problem confronting every country is the risk of overreaction by the public, as Mr. Shiina mentioned. It's clear that in the absence of information, people will assume the worst. It's also clear in any country if millions of people change their normal economic activities all at once, we'll have significant problems, even if all of the systems work just fine. No country can afford a lack of confidence that leads to runs on their financial institutions, hoarding of basic supplies, and increased fear. Therefore, it's important for all of us to share as much information as we can with the public about the state of our preparedness, and it's also very important for all of us to share advice and experiences as to how we're dealing with this problem, because no one has the magic solution. . . .

So, in all of these areas, we need to develop action plans working together. We need to have commitments that we've made, deadlines. We need to have goals as we move forward. We need to share as much as we can technical information and strategies for dealing with very specific problems. And as noted also, I think we need to begin to focus not only on individual contingency plans, but what are our across border contingency plans, how will we deal with the failure of information technology in customs, in telecommunications, in electric power grids. . . .

One of the advantages we have with the Year 2000 problem as opposed to most natural disasters is that we know what the problem is, we know when it's going to occur, so we can plan accordingly and be prepared, and being prepared means not only working on fixing our system, not only on having adequate contingency plans, but having appropriate emergency response plans so that we know how to work together through that transition time to deal with whatever problems we all confront. . . .

Ultimately what's clear, and it's now become axiomatic, is that we're all in this together, and we will all benefit from the common effort that's being made around the world. And our goal in the United States, and I'm sure it's a goal everywhere, was put by President Clinton in his State of the Union message, in which he said that if we all work together, the Year 2000 problem can be the last headache of the 20th Century rather than the first crisis of the 21st Century.

So, good luck to all of us. Thank you. . . .

Link: http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/prod...

-- y2kpro (eatin'myfeces@home.com), May 07, 1999

Answers

I don't believe it was the "real" Y2KPro who posted this. He always uses caps in his sig.

-- . (.@...), May 07, 1999.

yeah,the post doesn't seem to be total crap,either,an other give away that it's not really Y2KPRO(but he may eat his feces)

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), May 07, 1999.

That was no way the real Y2K Pro.

-- Prometheus (fire@for.man), May 07, 1999.

For once we are seeing some realism.Really scary especially when you think about the implications.

I'm buying more coffee !

PS.Thanks to who ever posted it !

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), May 07, 1999.

Whish I new how to spell paradigm shift. (para dime) We can only hope for his/her sake.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 07, 1999.

I think there's an "h" in there somewhere,scotty,it is a great word tho,should be more than a 50 cent'r

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), May 08, 1999.

Yep - not y2k prairie dog, he has never posted anything remotely useful yet.

"We only have 254 or 253 days to go, depending on which way you count the last day, but..."

What a maroon go skin'em is - it's about +-120 WORKING days left.

WE'VE RUN OUT OF TIME VIRGINIA...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 08, 1999.