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Peace at any cost is a prelude to war!
STILL PARTYING ON THE DECK OF THE TITANIC: PERSPECTIVE ON THE NEW MILLENNIUM
January 2000 Special Issue
By Donald McAlvany
I. LIVING IN THE DAY OF THE LIE; THE REAL STATUS OF THE Y2K FAILURES
II. APPROACHING CRISES WHICH DWARF Y2K
A. THE RISE OF THE HARD-LINERS IN RUSSIA
B. CHINA PREPARING FOR WAR
C. TERRORIST ATTACKS ON AMERICA
D. THE EXPLODING FINANCIAL BUBBLE - PRELUDE TO HYPERINFLATION?
III. YOUR PREPARATIONS WERE FOR MORE THAN Y2K
(NOTE: This is a special issue of The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, which is
not a part of the regular monthly newsletter. Feel free to copy and
distribute it, to place it on your website, etc.)
"Always mistrust the obvious."
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."Proverbs
16:18
INTRODUCTION
Y2K has come and Y2K has gone (or has it)? Are you happy, sad, relieved,
angry, perplexed, confused, surprised, feeling guilty or stupid because of
your "unnecessary" preparations, or what? It seems that as the New Years
weekend evolved and the world did not have its Y2K meltdown, that Americans
who believed they understood the nature and dangers of the Y2K crisis ran a
wide gamut of emotions. Many who prepared for the crisis that didn't come
have been ridiculed or mocked by friends, relatives, neighbors, business
associates, etc. for being so radical, extremist, or stupid as to have
acquired food, water, medical reserves, generators, wood stoves, water
filters, etc.
And the Y2K watchmen (North, Hyatt, Yourdon, Yardeni, Lord, Missler, John
Anderson, this writer, and others) have been trashed or mocked for "being so
wrong" and accused of being scam artists, charlatans, profiteers, hysterical
"false prophets," etc. Some of these Y2K watchmen (those who are outspoken
Christians) have been castigated most severely by fellow Christians who
believe that Christendom has been severely embarrassed or compromised by
their warnings of Y2K problems. Their character, motives, and intentions have
been severely criticized, maligned or mocked in what seems to this writer a
strange reaction to a major crisis which we are all thankful was averted.
[ED. NOTE: For those who still think that the whole Y2K crisis was a hoax or
a fraud, AP reported in a story from CNN/FN (1/4/00) that one state took
three computers which it did not fix, left them running through midnight
12/31/99 and, according to John Koskinen: "All three of the systems failed
following the Y2K rollover and could not be used. The systems simply stopped
and became unusable." Maybe fixing them was a good idea after all.]
1. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED A PERSPECTIVE ON Y2K
Y2K was (and is) a real problem worldwide it was not just a fabrication of
governments; software remediation companies; food, gold, water filter or
other preparedness companies; or fanatical gloom and doomers eagerly
anticipating the end of the world. Governments and businesses around the
world (according to Y2K Czar John Koskinen) spent an estimated $500 billion
on Y2K remediation (which is a lot to spend on a non-problem).
Hundreds of U.S. embassy personnel worldwide were brought home because of
fear of Y2K problems in countries like Russia. Governments, military forces,
law enforcement agencies, emergency management groups and corporate IT
personnel were placed on the highest state of mobilization or alert over the
New Years weekend in U.S. or world history it was truly a working weekend and
we were truly a hairsbreadth from a national or global state of emergency.
For the first time in U.S. history, all 10 FEMA Regional Centers were
activated and all 50 state emergency management organizations were fully
staffed and operational. They were stunned that we had no infrastructure
problems.
Most people (including the media) were focused on the power grid and
telecommunications systems in the U.S. and across the globe. Severe major
early problems in these areas could have crippled infrastructures and brought
down everything else in a giant avalanche of failures. Thankfully, through
extensive remediation efforts; cutting back on power in some plants while
bringing other reserve systems on stream; and Third World countries including
Russia, China, India, etc. going to manual operations severe failures were
averted.
Virtually everyone including U.S. and foreign government experts, Y2K Czar
John Koskinen, corporate IT personnel and Y2K bears, etc. were pleasantly
surprised that major failures did not occur in the domestic or global power
grid or telecommunications. However, other failures (to be discussed below)
have occurred and will continue to occur throughout the winter, spring and
summer. There was also great surprise that the embedded chip problems seemed
in early January to be minimal, with many observers concluding that this
aspect of the Y2K crisis was vastly overestimated.
It also appears that the success of the domestic and international
remediation efforts were underestimated by virtually everyone, including the
Y2K bears (including this writer). As James Woodward, a vice president with
Cap Gemini (a large Y2K remediation firm) said in the Washington Post
(1/1/2000): "There is a huge sense of relief. There was a gargantuan effort,
involving large amounts of people and money to get everything ready. It now
clearly seems like it was well worth it."
2. BUT IS Y2K REALLY OVER?
No, it is not over till it's over! We are only about half way through the
first quarter of the football game and though electric power and
telecommunications have not seen widespread failures, it is far too early to
declare total victory as the media has been doing. Although embedded systems
have not been as problematic as anticipated, there are many failures,
glitches, or stoppages occurring around the world (which are not being
reported by the media) and these are escalating as more systems come back on
stream. It should be noted that most business and government systems were
disconnected over the New Years weekend they could not fail because they were
not plugged in.
3. COMPOUNDING/CUMULATIVE PROBLEMS
Y2K glitches, or failures, corrupted data, or computer shutdowns are likely
to escalate throughout the winter, spring, and summer as we have seen with
the air traffic control system on the East Coast in the first week of
January. Will these problems be mere nuisances or will they compound into
serious problems which will damage the U.S. (or global) economy and financial
system. This writer has long believed (and continues to do so) that the
greatest negative impact from Y2K is likely to be economic to be felt
increasingly over the next three to six to nine months. As the Gartner Group
has pointed out, only 10% of all Y2K failures will have occurred in early
January with over half of such failures occurring later in the year.
4. ARE GOVERNMENTS AND THE MEDIA COVERING UP FAILURES?
It should be pointed out that there is a massive domestic and global coverup
by governments, the media and businesses (including banks) of Y2K-related
computer glitches or failures. Governments all over the world have a mutual
understanding that they will report no failures at least until they are
fixed, and maybe not even then. There has also been a global media blackout
of reporting on failures. The standard, orchestrated party-line from
governments and the media regarding any glitches or failures is: "It's not
Y2K-related." When you hear that phrase, you can safely assume that it is
probably Y2K related.
When problems do occur, no one will talk about them not government, banks or
businesses. They will keep them very quiet, hoping that no one will notice
until they are fixed. In most instances, we'll only know about the breakdowns
if they are too large to coverup like the East Coast air traffic control
problems or the Norwegian train wreck - and even then, we will quickly hear
that familiar refrain "It's not Y2K-related." It is worth repeating - you
won't hear about the glitches if they are coverable.
So, the bottom line is that, aside from a non-meltdown in the power grid or
telecommunications, we really don't know how bad Y2K is or will be over the
next six to 12 months; the truth about Y2K failures is being covered up by
governments, the media, and businesses; and the implications of cumulative
failures and compounding of bad data are still unknown.
5. THE ROLE OF THE Y2K ALARMISTS
"We owe a debt of thanks to the people who sounded the early alarms on Y2K.
Had there been no alarmists, the Y2K disaster would have been huge, because
just 24 months ago there was widespread ignorance and denial of the problem."
John Koskinen Y2K Czar (1/2/2000)
In spite of the fact that longtime Y2K skeptics are now gloating that "they
were right Y2K never was really a problem," and mocking the warnings and
motives of the Y2K awareness movement (the Norths Misslers, Lords, Yourdons,
Yardenis, Hyatts, and others), the fact remains that these warnings over the
past two to three years (Gary North began over three years ago) woke up
millions of people and convinced hundreds of thousands of people in
governments, businesses, banks, and the financial world that Y2K was truly a
huge, potentially devastating problem, and that serious remediation efforts
needed to be launched.
A half a trillion dollars was subsequently spent globally on the Y2K fix.
John Koskinen and other government and business leaders have acknowledged
since January 1 that Y2K was potentially huge and that the half trillion
dollar global remediation effort (which did make a positive difference)
should be credited in large part to the early, frequent, detailed, vocal
warnings of these Y2K alarmists.
Instead of being treated as goats, and mocked because there was not a global
Y2K meltdown, these watchmen should be congratulated for the role they played
in precipitating and catalyzing a monumental global effort to minimize the
effects of the millennium bug and in getting millions of individuals and
families better prepared for some future disaster(s).
[ED. NOTE: This writer and a number of his colleagues for whom he has great
respect believe that the people who seriously prepared for Y2K may have
actually and unknowingly been preparing for a much larger crisis i.e.,
terrorist, financial, nuclear, martial law, etc. These people, who number in
the hundreds of thousands, are today more prepared, more self-sufficient,
more independent and better positioned to survive a serious crisis which this
writer believes will eventuate in the not-too-distant future, than anytime in
their lives. In this writer's strong opinion, that is the biggest plus of all
from Y2K.]
I. LIVING IN THE DAY OF THE LIE: THE REAL STATUS OF Y2K FAILURES
MIA has written a lot in recent months regarding how we live in the day of
the lie in a time of great deception. This is currently manifesting itself in
the false (or non) reporting of Y2K failures or glitches which are occurring
in the U.S. and around the world. There is almost complete coordination
between governments and the media in the U.S. and globally (as there was
throughout 1999) regarding non-reporting of failures.
Virtually all the nations of the world (except Canada) signed an agreement
for such cooperation. Furthermore, if national security considerations can be
cited in times of national emergency, the government can use the media as a
disinformation outlet which it appears to be doing at present.
[ED. NOTE: This writer has sources within the defense establishment who
believe that the government is presently conducting a massive disinformation
campaign and lying regarding Y2K on a scale unprecedented in U.S. history and
especially about Y2K problems within the U.S. military and weapons systems,
where concealment of problems is relatively easy to facilitate.]
Y2K may not meltdown the U.S. or global infrastructure, but it is far from
over in spite of the near-total global blackout of information on failures
and the oft repeated caveat "but it's not Y2K-related." Like herpes, we are
constantly being told, "but it's only a cold sore." The reality is that there
have been many thousands of Y2K glitches or failures around the world since
12/31/99, including some very serious problems within the U.S. military.
There have been minor local telephone and power glitches around the country
which we have had personally reported to us by subscribers. Likewise for
business and manufacturing problems. The U.S. Eastern seaboard has been
plagued with air traffic control problems (to be described below) for several
days. Norway just experienced its most serious ever head-on train wreck (two
trains collided due to faulty switching) with a large number of fatalities.
Two months ago the Norwegian National Rail Administration warned that lives
could be lost at the turn of the millennium due to computer problems.
The San Diego Police Department is reported to have just erased all of its
criminal records. MCI has had problems. Through 1/5/00, Gartner Group
reported 400 private, confidential Y2K problems in businesses it consults.
There have been eight U.S. nuclear power plants which have had problems (four
critical), three in Japan and several in Spain. On December 31, two U.S.
nuclear power plants were shut down and a third scaled back significantly.
Y2K problems have occurred in at least eight other utilities (but were
quickly fixed) and power brownouts and brief outages were reported in Texas,
Kentucky, California and New Mexico. A stuck valve at a chemical plant in
Florida resulted in a large chemical spill and one death. Vehicle
registration in New Mexico has had serious problems.
NORAD has suffered serious Y2K problems (not reported by the media), bringing
a major portion of its system down. NORAD has had sustained, widespread
critical failures in such systems as their early warning (missile launch
detection) system, missile targeting systems, space based assets
(intelligence satellites such as the Keyhole-11 series of satellites), and
others.
A significant number of early warning satellites have failed in various
sub-systems of the satellites. One such satellite costs $600 million. The
Navy has experienced many failures ranging from systems in its aircraft
carriers to missile submarines (boomers such as the Ohio Class, carrying the
Trident I and II missiles). No major media sources have reported these
failures. Since August 23, 1999, the military has had ongoing problems with
their GPS (the constellation of 24 Navstar satellites which make up the GPS
network).
Informed sources have related to MIA that there have been substantial enough
problems in oil deliveries that in order to keep oil deliveries and prices
stable and hide present shortages, the U.S. is presently dipping into its
strategic oil reserves (which have a five or six month supply). There have
been failures in U.S. offshore drilling rigs.
Business systems around the country, which were fixed too fast and
inadequately tested (or not tested at all) are beginning to experience
increasing problems and that is likely to continue to accelerate throughout
the first and second quarters although most will never be publicly reported.
A growing number of fixes are beginning to experience problems (i.e., fixes
usually introduce 10-15% new bugs or errors which can cause breakdowns).
TechWeb/CMP Media has indicated that one in four (25%) of the IT
professionals they surveyed since 1/1/2000 indicated that their organizations
have experienced Y2K problems since the New Year.
Jim Lord thinks that as many business or government systems go through their
weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly tax and payroll cycles, that they
will begin to fail. As computer consultant Cory Hamaski recently wrote: "It's
the enterprise systems that will fail over months, corrupt databases, kill
organizations, put people out of work. I'm worried about the big old systems.
Some big systems run daily but most are weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual
jobs."
Problems have shown up with the Liberty Cash Card (i.e., cash replacement
cards) with 112,000 Liberty Cash Cards in use from California to Florida.
Thousands of these cards are being rejected due to the 2000 date (according
to the Denver Post 1/7/00). Federal Express and several large banks in
Phoenix are reported to have experienced problems. Denmark's Unidanmark says
it has found Y2K problems in its United Payment System.
On January 5, information leaked out that there was a major failure in point
of sale credit card transactions. It happened at 40,000 terminals 150,000
times. The problem was multiple charges for the same transaction. The
computer bills twice on the day of the transactions and once each day
thereafter. The failure is happening in one of the largest credit card
approval companies. The government and the Fed refuse to acknowledge the
problem part of the ongoing coverup of emerging Y2K problems.
[ED. NOTE: Pay close attention to your computerized credit card bills in
coming months.]
On 1/6/00, The Oregonian reported: "A Y2K problem at a small Chicago bank has
snagged electronic Medicare payments to hospitals and other health care
providers in at least eight states, including Oregon, Washington and
California. The glitch, which occurred this week at Highland Community Bank,
is causing payment delays of up to a day and leaving some Oregon hospitals
temporarily unable to access their newly deposited funds."
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