Theos-Talk Archives (May 1997 Message tl00535)

from an e-list discussion about the year 2000 software issue (reminds me
of the Tibetan's prediction about the removal of money [if it were to
become equated with safety and security]):
P
---
     For example, of the 30 million lines of code that must be debugged
on
the Social Security mainframe, only 6 million have been rewritten so
far,
since they started in 1991 - and any screwed-up line can throw
everything
else off. A little math will show that there is simply no way that SS
will be
2000 compliant in time. And the IRS, rather than fixing its own system
(which
is more full of bugs than a fire ant mound), just plans to tap into
Social
Security's machines. To boot (bad pun), any system that has been
corrected
must be run with a parallel system to determine if it's going to work.
     This is no joke. A lot of people are laughing about their mortgages

being paid ahead by 99 years, but it's not that simple.... their
financial house of cards
(which is all it is, when of the $100 trillion changing hands annually
worldwide, only $3 TRILLION is represented by the delivery or production
of
actual goods and services - ...All systems
operating on mainframe computers will go awry, including banking,
defense,
insurance, transportation, Social Security etc, etc. This is so serious
that
the Pentagon has absolutely no clue what to do. A high-ranking official
stated that there is no "silver bullet" to deal with this impending
disaster,
no technological fix that can be inititiated in time.