Y2K

CBD's Interview With Larry Burkett

CBD: Your Christian Financial Concepts web site states, "Planet earth, we have a problem". Do you feel at this juncture most American businesses have now recognized the problems caused by computers that can’t read dates after 1999 correctly and are taking action to correct it?

LB: If you’re talking about the large corporations, corporations that are a thousand employees or more, the record would be close to 100% that they recognize the problem, and certainly the vast majority, more than 90% are taking remedial action. When you drop down in size to the medium or small companies, I would say- I haven’t done a survey … this is kind of off the top of my head in talking with people, and some of the reviews done by the Gartner Group - I would say that probably 70% of those business recognize there is a problem, and probably the same ratio have taken some action.

CBD: Why the difference?

LB: Sometimes it’s a question of money. They just don’t have the resources. Now in some industries, the securities and the banking industry, they have no choice. They are forced to either remediate the problem of Y2K or they’re going to be shut down.

CBD: Companies that have been effectively dealing with this, do you think they have also established contingency plans?

LB: You almost have to take it industry by industry. If you’re talking about basic provisions, that would be utilities, communications, money, food – I would say the majority of the very large enterprises have done a lot of remedial action and many think that they are Y2K compliant. Most of them also have some kind of contingency plans. Let’s talk about power – the large enterprises are doing very well. But they use literally hundreds of little distributors.
They don’t have much control over those little enterprises. . . . they have not done a lot. Basically in fixing their computers they’re fixing their billing system as opposed to their distribution system.
They don’t understand that in fact, some of their systems are controlled by embedded chips, and they’ve got to check each and every one of them. I’d say those are lagging behind but as more and more information comes out more of them are working on the problem.

CBD: What is the outlook for the power industry?

LB: Power is one of the major concerns that most families have. . . I don’t think it’s going to be critical but I think there are going to be periods where the power in some areas will be off for 2 or 3 days, maybe 4 or 5 days. In general you’ll have a lot of brown outs and rationing because the best way to protect the grids is just not to connect them.

CBD: What impact do you think Y2K will have on the economy in 1999?

LB: Oh, I would say a positive impact most likely. Some of the big companies have realized that their just in time inventory systems are in jeopardy; that if all the suppliers they use aren’t Y2K compliant, they may have a problem. So, I think they’re loading up on some of their inventories where normally let’s say they would keep a 7-10 day inventory they’re probably doubling and tripling that in many instances. That helps the economy certainly during this period of time.
I think as you get toward the latter part of the year, -particularly once we get done with the Senate trial of the President and more and more media pick up on this, I think it will have a negative impact simply because of the reaction of people – or over reaction.

CBD: Do you think we will start to see computer glitches during the course of this year?

LB: A little bit probably. I think a lot of people have put too much emphasis on the fact that the government’s fiscal year changes over in October. . . . Let’s say a check [is] going to be cut in the year 2000. Well most computers can print 2000. That’s not the problem.
The problem is a bios chip, is it compatible with the year 2000? And, the date codes coming in are they used for some specific function as they would be in banking for instance, where you need that actual date in order to calculate interest and transfer rates. So I would think sometime toward the latter part of this year we will begin to see some of the problems but it won’t be the same as the year 2000 problems.

CBD: How do you respond to those, especially in the Christian community, who sound the alarm and call for people to convert their cash to silver and gold, and try and move to a "safer" location?

LB: Well, let’s see if I can keep a balanced approach here. If they are in the business of selling highly

. . . gold or silver, dried food or guns, I question their motivation because basically they’re stimulating the demand for their own product. For the other people I think they genuinely believe the crisis is going to be enormous, of great proportions, but their response to it is not the biblical response in my opinion. . . . Understand, these are a very small minority of people.
They’re the ones that get the publicity though. The media, particularly the secular media, publicize the fringe element of Christianity.

CBD: Do you think if these people get enough press and urge people to withdraw their money from banks could that in itself create a banking crisis?

LB: I don’t think so. Unless the mainstream public and the mainstream media, including the Christian media, pick that up as a . . . there are not enough of them to make a big difference.

CBD: You have stated that "Y2K is not a thing to fear, it is a thing to prepare for." What should the Christian community be doing to help people prepare and allay their fears?

LB: We don’t know what Y2K is going to look like, we should make an educated guess, that’s all. I would say, if you keep 2 weeks of food on hand that’s probably not enough. If panic ensues in this country, and that’s not impossible. . . it may not be 10 days to fill the stores back up, [but] it could easily be 3 weeks.

CBD: So you would tell people to-

LB: My recommendation would be to increase the supply of food gradually that you keep, but don’t buy freeze dried stuff, stuff that you’re never going to eat. Just increase your normal food supply from 2 weeks, which most families have in their home, to 4 or 5 weeks.

CBD: There are so many people that live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. The specter of stockpiling food and purchasing alternative energy is a problem that is too large when they are trying to figure out how to eat this week.

LB: The thing I would say is that it is up to the rest of us, if I think it will take 4 weeks for my family then I ought to put in 8 weeks. If somebody else needs some food then I can certainly help. In addition what we can not do individually we can do collectively. Each one of us couldn’t buy a generator, and shouldn’t buy a generator, but one hundred of us could get together and buy a generator for our church . . . if you needed a place to sleep at least you ought to have lights on in the church, have blankets there, food there, and with a little bit of effort we could stockpile those things in the church. If there is no problem at all, and it’s very possible there would not be a problem, all we have to do is pack them up and send them to Colombia or Guatemala or wherever needs them.

CBD: Do you think the Y2K problem can serve as a catalyst to challenge the Christian community to put into practice what we believe?

LB: Yes I do. Right now it’s dividing the Christian community more than it should be. We’ve kind of divided the troops, let me see if I can put this in the right terms, against the radicalist and the non radicalist. . . . if I’m talking to the people who are the radicals, I would have to be honest with them and say, I don’t believe what you’re saying, I don’t think it’s that bad. . . . if you are wrong what you have done is great damage. So let’s take a much more conservative approach to this thing. Let’s don’t go and hide out and buy machine guns to shoot our neighbors. Let’s stockpile some food and some water, blankets and be sure our families are ready. But if nothing happens all we’ve done is purchase a couple of months of food that we could eat up by not buying groceries for two months.
And we haven’t reacted in a non-Christian way by saying to our neighbors don’t come over to our house when you’re hungry because I’ve got a gun. That is not Christian and it is certainly not logical.

CBD: There are many uncertainties associated with Y2K. What are the things people can be certain about?

LB: Well, obviously from a spiritual perspective we can be certain that this did not catch God by surprise. He knew about it already and therefore He’s given the wisdom to a great many people to know how to respond to it. What you have to do is sort out which ones are from the Lord and which ones aren’t. The thing that we do know is there is no way we won’t have some disruptions with Y2K. . . . you’ll have utility companies that have made a mistake and their power is going to drop off for awhile, you can have telephone companies that have made mistakes and the telephones either aren’t going to work or are going to be disrupted. Even banks have made mistakes. You just have to accept, "Okay I can live through that." If I’ve got a month’s worth of cash on hand and my bank isn’t open for three days it doesn’t bother me. . . . they’re not going to close and never open again. If we could convince the American public, Christians in particular, the power is not going off and staying off. It’s going to be erratic, sporadic, you’ll have brown outs but it’s not going to stay off. Food is not going to disappear and never come back into the stores. . . . now if you only have 3 days of food on hand you probably have a problem. And there will be people, as you and I both know, who only have 3 days of food on hand. We have to be able to help them.

CBD: Anything else-

LB: We need to convince people they are not going to freeze to death.
There are places, even if your power did go off for 5 days in Minnesota, there are churches around there and government agencies that are going to take you in. They will have generators and they will have heat. . . . I think the greatest problem is outside of America. If I lived in Brazil or Japan I would be concerned. In large part they are not working to fix the problem. They don’t have the resources.

CBD: So the global economy will take a big hit?

LB: I don’t know what the long term effects are going to be but if I were in securities in the New York Stock Exchange I probably would not let Europe and Asia back onto my system until they verified they were Y2K compliant after the year 2000. . . . same thing is true with the banking system, we transfer hundreds of billions of dollars every day back and forth to Asia, Indonesia, and Europe but if their banks are not totally Y2K compliant they can corrupt our system by sending us bad data. So I would cut them off and I think that’s what’s going to happen.

CBD: Do you think that’s really possible?

LB: Oh yeah, I think it’s very possible. I think as we get very close what you’re going to see is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve recommending to banks that they sever the interrelationship with European banks for a period of time just to verify that they are Y2K compliant. . . . what you don’t want to do is have your system that is Y2K compliant corrupted by one that is not.

CBD: Do you think the government will take a more active role in promoting factual Y2K information after the trial is over or should businesses and churches be more outspoken?

LB: I think businesses are starting to take an active role in educating the public. The church leaders are so far behind the curve in themselves deciding do I believe this or not. And it is because they are getting so much conflicting data. If you’re the pastor and you have two members of your board that are on opposite spectrums on this issue, one who says, nonsense the problem doesn’t even exist and the other who says Armageddon is coming. It’s easier not to deal with the problem ‘cause then you have to deal with those two factions. . . . it’s not a problem that does not exist. It’s going to exist. I just disagree with so many of the people that think it’s going to be far worse than what the evidence shows. Now if the evidence gets worse as we go farther in I’ll change my evaluation but so far I’ve not seen anything that would warrant the kind of alarmism that I’ve heard coming out a lot of people.

FEBRUARY 2000 WILL HAVE 30 DAYS!!!

Make sure you don't have kids born on 30/2/2000, otherwise you don't get to celebrate their birthday unless you are able to live 400 years ....

FEBRUARY 2000 WILL HAVE 30 DAYS. THERE ARE SOME NUMBER OF SECONDS THAT ARE ACCUMULATED EVERY DAY WHICH MAKE UP TO BECOME AN EXTRA DAY ONCE IN EVERY FOUR YEARS AND THAT IS WHY WE HAVE THE LEAP YEAR. IN THE SAME MANNER THERE ARE SOME NUMBER OF SECONDS WHICH ARE ACCUMULATED FROM THE LEAP YEARS WHICH FORM TO BECOME AN EXTRA DAY ONCE IN EVERY 400 YEARS AND THAT IS WHY IN THE YEAR 2000. THERE WILL BE 30TH FEB 2000. SO THE CHILD BORN ON THAT DAY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CELEBRATE HIS/HER BIRTHDAY UNTIL 30TH FEB 2400.

THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY ARE TALKING ABOUT Y2K PROBLEM AND NOW WITH THE 30TH FEB PROBLEM ALL THE ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS WITH CALENDARS WILL BE DUMB. IT IS A NEW THREAT TO THE ENTIRE WORLD.

IS 2000 A LEAP YEAR?

Yes.

The rules for determining whether a given year is a leap year are:

1. If the year is evenly divisible by 4 it is a leap year, except for years ending in 00.
2. A year ending in 00 is a leap year if it is evenly divisible by 400.

Therefore, 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 will be a leap year. - Robert J. Sandler <rsandler4@juno.com>

Leap Year Myths and Facts

Please do not try to discuss these myths, or try to prove that they are not myths, on the Year 2000 mailing list or in other on-line discussion forums. We have all had our fill of leap year discussions. There are much more critical issues to be resolved, and time is running out.

Myth: If the year is evenly divisible by 3200/3600/4000 (pick one) it is not a leap year.

Fact: There is no such rule. The two rules given above are the complete rules for determining whether a year is a leap year in the Gregorian calendar. The popularity of this myth seems to derive from the fact that the average length of the year in the Gregorian calendar is approximately 26 seconds longer than the tropical or solar year. This difference amounts to one day in a little over 3300 years, or about three days in 10,000 years. Some experts have proposed rules similar to the mythical rule to correct for this difference. But no government, standards organization, or other authoritative body has adopted such a rule.

Myth: The year 2000 will be a "double leap year" or "super leap year."
February will have 30 days and the year will be 367 days long.

Fact: There is no such thing as a double leap year or super leap
year. The year 2000 will be a leap year like any other leap year, with 29 days
in February, and 366 days in the year.

THANKS FOR VISITING! GOD BLESS YOU!

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