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May 25, 1998 - Art Bell

02:36:46

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Gary North - Y2k

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	I'm Art Bell, and this is, indeed, another week of Coast to Coast AM underway.
	Coming up in a minute is the thousand-pound gorilla of the Y2K problem.
	He's Gary North, PhD, University of California, Riverside, in 1972.
	Was a Congressional Research Assistant for Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican-slash-Libertarian.
	Author of 43 books published in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, American Spectator, Freeman.
	Newsletter editor of Remnant Review in 74.
	in 74 and for him the year 2000 project began in November of 1996 in in December
	of 1999 I suspect there is going to be nothing but this on our lips
	Because you should hear what's going to happen.
	Bank runs will start around the second half of 99.
	No bank will survive to 2001.
	An all-cash economy in 2000.
	an all cash economy in 2000. Dow Jones average January 3rd, 2000, zero
	because it'll be shut down. Demise of the IRS. April 15th.
	You can almost hear the clapping.
	No more government checks, no more checks, period.
	No credit cards, no pension plans.
	And that's kind of only the beginning, so... In a moment, we'll find out if all this really is going to occur.
	So I thought I would have my little moment of, uh, levity right now.
	Let me... We actually had a contest for this.
	And I suspect this is about as light as it's going to get.
	So I thought I would do this before Gary actually gets here.
	Check this out.
	Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale of the doom that is our fate.
	That started when programmers used two digits for a date.
	Two digits for a date.
	Main memory was smaller then, our disks were smaller too.
	Four digits are extravagant, so let's get by with two.
	Yes, let's get by with two.
	This works for 1999, the programmers did say.
	Unless we rewrite before that, we'll all go away.
	All will go away.
	Out of all the things we've done, we've done best.
	Management has now approved, it works fine now you bet A rewrite is a straight X and we won't do that just yet
	No, we won't do that just yet Now when 2000 rolls around, it all goes straight to
	Oh, well.
	Zero's less than 99, as anyone can tell.
	can tell. Yes, anyone can tell. The mail won't ring your pension check. It won't be sent
	to you when you're no longer 68 but minus 32. I'm sure you get the idea.
	I'm sure you get the idea.
	It's called two digits for a date.
	It was done for us.
	As you probably know...
	This is a video of a man who was trying to escape from the prison.
	He was trying to escape from the prison.
	Here is Gary North.
	He's a hard guy to get hold of.
	Gary North is really a hard guy to get hold of.
	Gary, welcome to the program.
	Thank you, Art.
	artful on the cdc radio network
	the right uh... here we go uh... here is gary north is a hard guy to get hold of
	gary north is really hard to get hold of gary welcome to the program
	thank you are all where are you actually located
	i am in the sticks We are in the northwest Arkansas region.
	Way out there.
	Well, I am, too.
	By the way, is that a good thing or a bad thing, considering what's coming?
	Well, I suppose it depends on exactly which sticks you're into.
	My goal here was to get as far away as I could from any major metropolitan area without going completely into, say, northern Minnesota.
	which my wife really was not too enthusiastic about.
	And then I've also at the same time got access to the University of Arkansas library which
	is very important to me because I still do my writing.
	And so I wanted to be close to a good library but yet pretty much away from a large city.
	So we found the Fayetteville area.
	Do you mean all you need is not available on the internet?
	Well, in all honesty all I need is available on the internet.
	But I do writing some material, historical material where that has not been put onto
	But yes, you're correct.
	As far as my business is concerned, yes, I can do it and do most of it off of the Internet.
	What will happen to the Internet, by the way?
	I make extensive use of it.
	I'm online all the time, like you are.
	I'm just lucky enough to have a second phone line.
	What's going to happen to the Internet in 2000?
	That's going to depend very heavily on how well and if the telecommunications industry gets itself compliant.
	At the present time, it does not look good.
	You can't have the net if you do not have functional phone lines.
	AT&T has about 500 million lines of code to correct.
	has about 500 million lines of code to correct. Sprint has about 100 million. MCI is not saying,
	but since it's about halfway between the two, it's probably 250 to 300 million lines of
	Wow.
	This is an enormous undertaking for these companies.
	So, if they get it compliant, yes, there is at least a possibility that the web will stay up, but we do not have any large telecommunications firm claiming compliance at this time, which means the news is probably not good.
	I notice it says here you live on 60 acres, have two natural gas wells, and three power generators.
	That's correct.
	So you're living what you're preaching then?
	Yes, I did decide, one of the strong reasons I decided in fact to come to the region where I came is that it is still possible for a private citizen to buy property that does have natural gas on it.
	There are several regions where you can do this in the United States.
	Eastern Kentucky, Eastern West Virginia, you can find properties like this.
	And so I decided that was a way of preserving electrical power should there be blackouts.
	And I think the likelihood is that there will be.
	I've got one generator, and it operates on a large propane tank, and then I'm dead.
	Yeah, well, propane is cheap, especially this summer.
	And I would say that's a very good investment for people.
	Well, why should I be worried about the possibility of electrical power going down?
	There are, in the United States, approximately 7,800 power-generating or power-transmitting organizations, public utilities.
	There is no compliant public utility in the United States at this time.
	None?
	None.
	About two weeks ago, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent out a letter to every power plant in the U.S.
	that is under their jurisdiction, about 108 of them, and said, gentlemen, you have 90 days to get to us a complete report on how you plan to be completely compliant by July 1st of next year.
	Is that possible?
	I don't think it is, but if it is, we don't have a working model.
	And that's your problem.
	Let me give you an example.
	This is a real horror story, although there are lots of them that we could talk about, but this one really stunned me.
	Governor Bush of Texas found out about Y2K Probably sometime last fall and in November sent a letter out to the state agencies saying we want to know if you're compliant, fine, but if you're not then let us know when you intend to be compliant.
	And this went out to the Public Utilities Commission to all of the power generating plants in the state of Texas.
	Right.
	Now seven of those plants generate about 85% of all of the electrical power in the state of Texas.
	Those plants, one of the representatives of those plants testified about three weeks ago to Congresswoman Morello's committee in Washington.
	At that time, this public utility representative said, on average, these seven gigantic firms have allocated $300,000 to fix the problem.
	thousand dollars to fix the problem now at that same testimony
	uh... pepco which is the company that supplies the power for the
	capital of the united states and the regional area of maryland said we have allocated
	ten million dollars and we do not expect it possible to be able to keep
	that allocation that will much longer Bye.
	Now, the disparity is enormous.
	The difference between 300,000 allocated this late in the game and 10 million indicates that the plants in Texas are simply not going to make it.
	All right, let me do a couple of things here.
	It also says you believe Western civilization could actually collapse in the year 2000 if the power grid goes down for over 60 days.
	I was on the Lynn Samuels show on WABC earlier tonight doing a sort of a thing, a one-hour thing with her.
	And I told her, Lynn, if you doubt what'll happen, just go to the fuse box in your home and throw the mains off and start walking around your house or apartment and see what a dead place you're living in.
	Now, there was a movie called The Trigger Effect, Gary, in which the power went off.
	I don't know if you happened to... Yes, I saw the movie.
	And do you think that's a good example of what would happen if the grids went down?
	No, The Trigger Effect was much too mild.
	They were killing each other!
	Yes, they were.
	The problem of the trigger effect, some of the script was quite good.
	I don't think the movie as a whole was, but there were some sections of that movie which people really should watch very carefully.
	One was the section of what happens in the supermarket, and the other was the section of what happens in the local gun store.
	Those two sections are worth watching the movie.
	The problem with that movie, which presumably it's Los Angeles they're talking about, is that when the power goes down, it goes down for three days or four days before people really sense that it may not come back on.
	That's right.
	Then they head for the open highway.
	The fact of the matter, Art, is that at that point, in Los Angeles County and the L.A.
	Basin, you would not get onto that highway.
	It would be wall-to-wall, bumper-to-bumper stalled cars.
	It would be like a gigantic candle.
	The lights had gone out, and the wick had gone out.
	You would not move out.
	A good example of that, Gary, is this last winter in Chicago.
	They had some terrible snows, and what happened is, And I'm sure it's exactly the same thing, that a bunch of cars got up on the freeway, and they ran out of gas, and they stopped everybody else, and before you know it, you had 13 miles of cars with people in danger of freezing to death.
	Yes.
	Now, that's exactly what would occur, because people trying to get out of town would get up there and run out of gas, and they would stop everybody else.
	You'd have 18 wheelers turned over, it'd be horrible.
	The best example of this I ever saw was forecasted in a book which I downplayed and dismissed, and I think did so erroneously over 25 years ago.
	A book written by Roberto Vaca called The Coming Dark Age, and in that book he has a description of the freeway blockage when a power system goes down and stays down.
	The United States government is aware of this and over the last six weeks has begun making plans to I believe, I think there's another way of explaining it, of implementing a martial law situation in 2000.
	They're doing it under the guise of the phrase cyber-terrorism, which is okay, because that really is in effect what we're dealing with, except we did it to ourselves.
	The St.
	Patrick's Day speech by Secretary of Defense Cohen to the National Press Club was very clear.
	They are setting up, right now, a fusion Of the National Guard units and the Army Reserves.
	And they're specifically doing this because they have said we're going to be hit by cyber-terrorism in an unstated period of time, but they say it is inevitable.
	And the next day, General Schultz released a press release saying, yes, the war is going to come to America, we are going to be hit by these terrorist attacks.
	And we have to have an emergency SWAT, essentially a SWAT team or Rapid Deployment Force to keep peace in the cities.
	Good Lord!
	You really think it potentially could be that bad?
	It's on the web!
	And by the way, let me say this tonight, and I want the listeners to understand.
	What I say about the web or the documentation is on my site.
	You can click to the documents.
	Now, I will interpret And I'll tell you when I'm doing that.
	But if you're talking about, did Cohen give the speech, did Shultz release the press release, not only did they do it, you can get it on my site and read the original document.
	What is your site, please?
	It's called just www.garynorth.com.
	Okay, we'll get an immediate link up if we don't already have one.
	I'm sure we do.
	www.garynorth.com.
	That's it.
	That's easy.
	And I'm sure my webmaster is listening.
	And he does a lot of code writing.
	I'd like to, before we get into the specifics of this horrible thing that's going to occur, I would like to go back to the beginning.
	I played a stupid little song called Two Digits for a Date.
	Yes.
	And it implied that way back when it was just a bunch of programmers who wanted to save money.
	What was the genesis of all this?
	Was it that simple?
	It was, in a way, let me tell you, it's even simpler.
	In the 1950s, They had punch cards.
	I remember.
	Eighty digits on a punch card.
	Those digits were scarce.
	they say two digits of the game by going to night and by dropping the one and the nine of
	the century on the other putting in fifty five
	or fifty six or fifty eight or sixty two in the digits not
	filling up those extra two digits on the punch card also someone
	and the nice suddenly i understand that makes all the sense in the world when
	they were using punch cards space was indeed very valuable wasn't it
	i'll be damned and so then that just carried over to the writing of code in
	all of these important basic programs yet again let me tell you the most famous code writer who was involved in
	admitted that He admitted this about, I believe, on February 25th, essentially, not cross-examination, but questioning.
	This was Alan Greenspan, who was the head of the Federal Reserve System.
	And he had testified to the Senate Banking Committee about things in general and then finally Senator Bennett who's
	been very good on this issue said well Mr.
	Greenspan, what do you think of the year 2000 problem?
	Greenspan began to reminisce.
	He said we know I was working on these things back in the mid 1960s. I was a programmer.
	He said I was just so proud we were all so proud when we could come in and save a little space.
	And he said that's what we did.
	We saved space.
	We saved memory.
	We were quite proud of ourselves.
	Then he went on and he said, now by the way, he said, I don't think I could recognize my own code today.
	And there wasn't any documentation.
	We couldn't write any of this down.
	And so he said, this is a very, very serious problem, because those of us who did it can't remember exactly how we did it, and now we have to fix it.
	Okay, an obvious question, and when we come back, we're about to break your bother there, but when we come back, a lot of people are going to want to know, well, how come we can't just fix it?
	I mean, how come we just can't go in and make two more spaces and modify the software very simply?
	Why is this a big problem, and why are we saying it's too late to fix it?
	So hold on, Gary, we'll be right back.
	My guest, guest is Gary North.
	And as I told you earlier, he is the thousand pound gorilla of the Y2K thing.
	Along with about one or two others.
	The predictions really are extremely dire.
	And tonight you're going to find out just how serious it's going to be.
	No cash.
	If we have a cash economy, that means people are going to start making a run on banks as As we enter the second half of 1999.
	I don't know, we'll ask.
	Is it reasonable they would do so?
	Is panic ever reasonable?
	I'm Art Bell. This is Coast to Coast AM.
	And now, back to the best of Art Bell.
	All right, now back to Gary North.
	Gary, the obvious question is, why is it a problem?
	Why can't we go back in and simply program the ability to handle the year 2000 into these mainframe computers?
	What is the problem?
	It's not to say that you can't with a mainframe computer.
	Visa and MasterCard seem to have conquered most of the problems that they have had as recently as eight months ago.
	One company may be able to do it if it gets enough programmers.
	It may not also, but we don't have many success stories.
	Visa and MasterCard is the largest of the success stories that we have.
	There is no other that I know of comparable.
	The basic problem, Art, is that it's not just the program itself.
	It's 30 years of data.
	Thirty years of information that in the old days was key punched in.
	Right.
	And it is filled up, which constitutes now something in the range of three quarters of all the information that we have in the western world today is in a mainframe computer somewhere.
	And I've called it the Alzheimer's economy.
	Because when you cannot access the data, and you can't access it because it's in the wrong format, That it thinks that 00 is 1900 instead of 2000, and all of the numerical programs to access that data are accessing the wrong century.
	Those data simply disappear from view.
	You can't access them.
	You can't consult them.
	You can't compute with them.
	That's your problem.
	So what disappears?
	I'm trying to apply this to the average person.
	For example, somebody who has a bank account, somebody who's got a CD, somebody who's got a retirement plan, what happens?
	If the bank runs again when I think they will, which is the second half of next year, and I may be overly optimistic they could begin as early as next April, What you're going to see then is the classic problem of every fractional reserve banking system, and that is the money isn't in the bank.
	It's been loaned out.
	It's in the company's coffers.
	They've gone in.
	They've borrowed money.
	They've got their plans operating.
	They're paying their people.
	They're supporting inventory or whatever has to be done with the money.
	The money's not in the vault.
	The money has been loaned out.
	The difficulty then is That all over the world, people have been told, you may get your money in cash, on demand.
	Well, they can't.
	They can't.
	And so when this negative psychology hits, and I think it'll hit, frankly, I think it'll hit first in Japan, not in the United States.
	Well, that's bad, too, because they begin recalling funds that they have.
	Invested here, and they are substantial, of course.
	Yes.
	Huge.
	Gigantic.
	Yep.
	They're the lender of the world.
	Right.
	When the Japanese housewife figures this out, which I think will happen, probably begin to figure it out next April, because they're on a fiscal year on April 1st, which rolls into 2000.
	And when the Japanese housewives begin to understand that the Americans have sold them computers that do not work, I think the run will begin in Japan.
	The same day, by the way, Canada Rolls over into 2000 and New York State rolls over.
	This is July 1st now?
	No, no.
	It's early.
	This is kind of, this is April Fool's Day.
	That will be on April 1st of 99.
	Now 44 other states roll over in this country on July 1st.
	Now you're being heard right now all over Canada, coast to coast in Canada.
	Probably most of the Canadians up are listening.
	You're saying that their nightmare begins April 1st?
	That will be the first big trigger.
	Japan first, because, of course, they're on the other side of the dateline.
	And then Canada, technically, the next day.
	But both April 1st.
	That will be the first large-scale test of the system.
	Because all of those systems will record then, if they're mainframes, that they've rolled into fiscal 1900.
	And that's your problem.
	Okay, then, on April 1st of 99, you say it'll be sort of like a first lightning strike.
	What do you expect to occur on that day?
	I expect that computer systems will begin to break down in both those countries.
	That they will begin to act haywire.
	Bad data will be spewed out of them.
	People will begin to realize there is a fundamental problem.
	Some will shut down.
	And the word will get out that something fundamentally is wrong with the system.
	But the public will finally realize it can't be deferred anymore, and all the background noise, which Y2K is right now, it's music is all it is, because people do not understand that it's real.
	When they finally begin to perceive that it's real, they're going to say things like, well, maybe I ought to get a little cash out of the bank, just for safety's sake.
	Sure.
	And the difficulty is, is that when enough people do this, and as the lines get longer, people will say, maybe I ought to get even a little extra out of the bank, more than I'd planned, and by the time they're at the front of the line, it's gimme it all.
	And of course, they can't do this.
	So there will be a shutdown of the banking system.
	They will simply say, you cannot get your money out, that cannot be done, it will not be done, and they will impose emergency banking orders.
	At that point, you have the rationing of money.
	They've never done it before, but they're going to have to do it then.
	What do you mean, rationing of money?
	It means that you will be limited on what you can spend and what you can take out in the form of cash.
	You will not be able to get access to cash, which will create probably an enormous havoc problem for coin-operated vending machines and anybody connected with that industry.
	That industry will be in really big trouble a year from now.
	And then, as people realize that they can't get their cash out, that their money has been locked up on a permanent basis, then they're going to look to say, what can I do with my money?
	Where should I put my money?
	What kinds of things do I need now with my credit card or with my checks?
	Because if it's this bad now, what should I do with my money?
	And that is when I think you will begin to see selling, perhaps even earlier, but selling out of the stock market around the world of people saying, I'm going to buy things.
	I'm going to buy consumer durables.
	I'm going to get my hands on stuff instead of electronic promises to pay.
	Does this mean that people want and run their credit cards up to the limit?
	Yes.
	Let me tell you an interesting story, Gary.
	We once were talking about the possibility of a comet, like we'd get about three or four months notice that a comet was going to crash into the earth, and we were talking just humorously about running our credit cards right up to the limit, because who cares, right?
	And so some lady in my audience called, it was either Visa or MasterCard, one of the big ones, and actually asked them, and they put a management person on That's correct.
	and gave her an honest answer. They said, you know, we've actually considered that.
	And our answer would be, we would allow everybody to run their cards right up to the limit.
	Because what do we have to lose? On the one hand, if the comet hits, we're all gone anyway.
	But on the other hand, if it misses, look how much money we've made.
	That's correct.
	That's actually, was actually their management level answer.
	You can do that if, and the if is this.
	All right.
	Art, let's assume you really think it's going to come.
	Okay.
	Now, and let's assume I really think it's going to come.
	Right.
	Do I want to loan, for example, my money at 7% for a 30-year mortgage for somebody else to buy a house if I really think there is a suspicion that the electronic records of the transaction And the bank's solvency is in question.
	Am I going to loan 30 year money at 7% if I really think I can't get it back because of failure of electronic impulses?
	So my assumption will be the one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that when the banks say you cannot get your cash out, the response of the public is going to be that I'm not putting any more in.
	That's true.
	And at the same time, you will get exactly the credit card effect that you're describing.
	So your classic squeeze takes place.
	You have very high demand for loans, running the interest rates up, and you have very low desire on the part of lenders to give the institutions any extra money to make those loans.
	Absolutely.
	So the wise people will go out and borrow at 7% first, right?
	First.
	That's correct.
	Is this real?
	That's what I think is going to happen.
	I think interest rates will go double-digit and towards the end of next year, triple-digit.
	My God!
	I mean, this is Armageddon, virtually, you're describing.
	Let's put it this way.
	Small A. Small A Armageddon.
	Alright.
	Is there a chance, Gary, in other words, is there any way you can forecast how long this The total trigger effect is going to last.
	Will we recover from it?
	And if so, in what form?
	What do you envision post-Y2K?
	Art, the big one, as I call it, the big one is the question of the power systems, the power grid.
	That's the big one.
	Good men, and I trust them, say you're going to get at least blackouts, brownouts, and unpredictable behavior throughout the year 2000.
	I think that's the minimum that you say is likely.
	The difficulty we're facing is that we have never had one of these production systems get compliant.
	They're operating with embedded chips that have the programs in them, and worse, this is the biggest problem.
	This is the horrendous one.
	All of them exchange information and data with each other.
	That's true.
	And if company A gets its computers compliant and imports non-compliant data from company B, it completely reinfects its own system.
	This is the problem of the systemic failure.
	It's like a virus.
	It, I think, is exactly like a virus.
	And so the difficulty you have is everybody is saying, oh, well, you go first.
	It's the you-go economy.
	Everybody else says, you spend the $300 million or the $400 million.
	Let's see you get it done first, then we'll think about getting it done.
	If the power grid acts like it did in New York back in 1965, where it's an unpredictable event, And it is unpredictable, because we don't know how these systems will respond because of the programming.
	And we don't know how they will interact.
	If the grid overloads, then you have a crisis of monumental proportions.
	Oh, yes.
	Because how do you get them booted back up?
	They need power from the other one, just as they did in New York in 1965.
	You have to get power from outside your region to boot you back up.
	And they're all going to be hit with the same problem the same day.
	If they go down, and if they don't get back up within, I believe it's a 60-day minimum, I don't think they'll get back up.
	At all?
	At all.
	Now, again, that's my view.
	I can't tell you there's an official out there saying this is true, but let me tell you what they do say.
	The Electric Power Research Institute, which is the 500-million-dollar-a-year think tank of the electrical industry, was approached by Businessweek reporter in February.
	And he reported in March that when he asked them, can this system go down, will it be able to be maintained, the answer is, we don't know.
	We don't know.
	Now that's a very chilling answer when you're talking about an institution which supports the whole civilization.
	Have there been any experiments, Gary?
	In other words, has any large mainframe, has somebody reset it just to see what would happen?
	Yeah, and usually they shut down.
	They shut down.
	One specialist in embedded chips, a man named David Hall, said he has been present in several of these testing situations.
	And he posted just about a week ago, he said, in every case I have been associated with, the system has simply shut down.
	Good Lord.
	Well, then what about, people would obviously ask, what about 2001?
	Would it all be fixed by then?
	How do you fix it?
	I don't know.
	I mean, the point is, if you can't fix it when interest rates are 7%, if you can't fix it when everybody's content to live in the city, and you've got Whatever programmers you have out there working on it at exceedingly high wages and rising, if you can't fix it now, how do you fix it if there's no bank?
	If you can't pay your programmers, why are they going to sit in New York and Chicago in the middle of winter of the year 2000 to sit in a freezing building to work on computer code?
	What do you pay them with?
	Stuff.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, in a sense that's right.
	Now let's talk about stuff.
	Stuff in the United States, we don't think of it, but stuff in the United States is almost entirely dependent on the operation of the railroad system.
	Correct.
	Because the big stuff, coal and chemicals and wheat and grains out of our farms, all of that big time stuff Well, listen, I live out here in the desert and I can assure you Las Vegas is almost entirely dependent for its food and everything else on trucking.
	That's right.
	Both forms.
	However, and of course both are completely vulnerable, but let's talk about the trains because Las Vegas is presumably bringing in its stuff from larger cities, grain processing plants and so forth.
	I'm sure.
	The average large city, its power generation is probably coal.
	About 40-45% of America's power is powered by coal.
	Now, the trains are not compliant.
	Union Pacific is not compliant.
	They have been working on getting compliance since 1995, and I checked their website today.
	They are still not compliant and not putting any date on when for sure they're going to get compliant.
	They all hope they're going to get compliant next year, but nobody is sure.
	The difficulty is, if there are problems with the train switching systems, all computerized, and mostly run out of Florida, If those train switching systems begin acting haywire, then the engineers have got to stop those trains until the situation is fixed.
	Now the difficulty is it takes something like three trainloads of coal per day to run a large city's power generation plant.
	Right.
	Per plant.
	If there's any interruption of the coal shipments, Then what you're talking about is a breakdown.
	Again, the running out of power to generate the power stations in the cities, in the middle of winter.
	And that's the big one.
	And nobody has an answer for that one.
	They don't address it.
	There's almost no public discussion of it, because it's an unsolvable problem at the present time.
	So, no power?
	Bill Bauer from several points of view.
	This is what it looks like to me.
	Now, I'm willing to say, okay, someone out there may have this great solution, but I have been spending 20 to 30 hours a week of donated time that I'm just doing because I want to do it.
	I've been spending this amount of time since January of 1997, and I have yet to see any public document in which this is even discussed.
	People are going to say, if it is as bad as you are saying, Gary, or even potentially as bad as you're saying, then what about our elected government?
	I mean, they are there supposedly to take care of our health and welfare.
	Well, this clearly has to do with our health and welfare, right?
	It surely does.
	So what are they doing?
	Are they planning for martial law?
	Yes, they are doing that.
	They generally do not Discuss year 2000 as the basis of it though.
	There is one document in which it is marginally mentioned and that is On the president's commission what's called the PCC IP the president's commission on critical infrastructure protection This is was created by executive order in July of 96 and they have a fact list a frequently asked questions list and if you go to that fact list and And I've got it on my site.
	They do say that the effects of the year 2000 problem are comparable to a terrorist attack.
	That's all they say.
	They don't go into it, they don't talk about dealing with it, but they do admit it.
	Great.
	Alright, Gary, hold on.
	We're at the top of the hour.
	You've got a good rest here.
	I know I need one after hearing all of this.
	And I thought I was the Dr. Doom of talk show hosts.
	My guest is Gary North.
	He knows about Y2K.
	I suspect by now we've got your attention.
	If not, keep listening.
	Well, actually, if we don't have your attention by now, probably you're not educable.
	So, stay right where you are.
	We'll be back.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm going to be doing a video on the Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm going to be doing a video on the First-time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	702-727-1222.
	Now, here again is Art.
	Well, once again, here I am.
	Good morning, everybody.
	My guest is Gary North.
	Now, here again is Art.
	Once again, here I am.
	Good morning, everybody.
	My guest is Gary North.
	The subject is Y2K.
	Gary North received his PhD from the University of Washington.
	from the University of California at Riverside in 1972, was a Congressional Research Assistant to Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican-slash-Libertarian, has authored 43 books, published in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, American Spectator, The Freeman, Newsletter Editor of Remnant Review in 1974, The Year 2000 Project began for him in November of 1996.
	He lives on 60 acres, has two natural gas wells, three power generators, and believes Western civilization could collapse in 2000 if the power grid goes down for over 60 days, and sees no reason why it won't.
	The predictions are as follows, and we'll talk about some of them.
	Banks will begin ...had to have runs on them in about the second half of 1999, worldwide.
	No bank to survive to 2001.
	An all-cash economy in 2000.
	The Dow Jones Average, January 3 of 2000, because it was shut down.
	Demise of the IRS, April 15, 2000.
	No more government checks, no more checks, no more credit cards, no more pension plans.
	Shut down of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
	Family payments.
	No more airline service.
	The FAA is not going to meet the deadline.
	We'll talk about that.
	No more Las Vegas, Reno, and Orlando tourism.
	Trains will cease operating in 2000.
	No more automobile production.
	That would be from the domino effect.
	No elections in 2000, because there won't be any computers.
	Martial law in our cities.
	Other than that, it'll be a fine day.
	Speaking of worldwide web addresses, if you will go to my website, I talked to Keith Rowland, who is my webmaster during the break, and I asked him about Gary's website.
	He said, of course, yes, the link is there now.
	And he said, you know, you better go read it, because he's got an awful lot of information to back up exactly what he's saying on his website.
	If those of you who have me bookmarked, just go to my website at www.artbell.com, scroll down to the guest area down at the bottom, and click on Gary North's name, and you'll be right there.
	And there is information to back up what he's saying, and what he's saying is pretty serious.
	Here he is once again, Gary North.
	And Gary, here's somebody who takes you on, says, Art, Gary North is fear-mongering.
	All financial transactions are backed up on paper.
	There is not going to be a problem.
	What do you say to that?
	How are you going to get the paper?
	Are you going to call your local stockbroker on his toll-free 800 number and get a perpetual busy signal until the phone shuts down?
	How are you going to get the paper?
	Are you going to send it by mail?
	The U.S.
	mail is not compliant.
	Art, I'm a fear monger.
	I've scared myself out of business.
	I know that there's no chance that I'm going to be in business in 18 months.
	None.
	None?
	I'm out of business.
	Because the U.S.
	Postal System is not compliant.
	Now.
	You're kidding.
	Neither is UPS.
	You're not compliant.
	How are they going to deliver this stuff?
	You can get your piece of paper.
	What is the piece of paper to?
	It's a promise to do what?
	It's an I owe you nothing.
	If General Motors, and this is true, this is verified.
	In fact, this came through Fortune just about two weeks ago.
	General Motors has 100,000 suppliers of parts, equipment, and services.
	I'm sure.
	None has been registered as compliant.
	Now, it's not just General Motors, it's Honda, it's Ford, it's Chrysler.
	Now, what value is a General Motors stock or promise to pay If General Motors suppliers cannot deliver General Motors the parts to make the cars, you're talking about a company that's a $150 billion company a year.
	Well, yeah, you can get your piece of paper with the pretty symbol that says, yes, you own a piece of this action, but what's the action?
	That's a very good point.
	It's a very good point.
	I have no answer for it.
	You said specifically in here, no more Las Vegas, Reno or Orlando tourism.
	Now I'm just over the hill from Las Vegas.
	We depend for our livelihoods on tourism here.
	What do you mean by that?
	Let's give an analysis which actually was not originally mine.
	It's a friend of mine by the name of Anthony Easton who is a professor out in California.
	He began playing around with this project for his class.
	Six weeks ago, and he ran it by me, and I said, yep, can't argue with that one.
	It's the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration.
	IBM, earlier this year, went to the FAA and said, gentlemen, the computer that you are using, the 40 of them, to route your 20 major routes, is not only non-compliant, gentlemen, there is no one left in this company who understands it.
	You mean the original code?
	The original computer which the FAA uses to route all flights.
	It is going down.
	IBM told them it is going down.
	To which the FAA said, we're going to study this for 90 more days.
	You may be wrong.
	Now the FAA is then repeatedly identified by the General Accounting Office of Congress As not being compliant and not going to make it.
	So what does that mean is going to happen?
	It means that you're going to have to find some way other than computers to route 600 mile an hour jets to take off every minute.
	That's what it means.
	Well, in other words, airplanes are going to stop flying on that day?
	Ethan's estimate is they'll probably at best have to cut back to what the flight patterns were probably in 1970 to 73.
	Oh, brother.
	Now that would mean the bankruptcy of every airline because they have bought these multiple billion dollar devices called planes to fill them, to fly them, to take them off every 60 seconds.
	You won't have that.
	You can't have that.
	So then what's going to happen to airline tickets?
	They're going to go from 300 and 400 to 2,000.
	They're going to be business class only.
	You're not going to have this massive tourism because they will not be able to fly those planes in that kind of numbers.
	Then what happens to the banks that have loaned the airline industry hundreds of billions of dollars to buy these planes?
	And by the way, Art, it's not just us.
	Britain has the same problem with its computers.
	This is an international problem.
	Besides, Art, none of the planes is compliant.
	The average Boeing plane probably has 100 to 165 non-compliant systems in it.
	There is no compliant airport, Art.
	None!
	There's none in the United States that meets the qualifications.
	Even this new multi-billion one out of Denver, they've admitted they're not 2000 compliant, Dallas isn't compliant, and neither is the Atlanta.
	Now, if you take out Dallas and Atlanta, you've taken out the American Airlines Ministry.
	I know, I know.
	Is there time?
	I mean, if they began today, and just with a crash program to get it done, would they get it done?
	Or is it already, in many cases, not just with the airlines, but in so many of these areas, is it too late?
	The general assessment is the United States is short programmers.
	The minimum I have seen, the estimate, the minimum estimate is 350,000.
	We are raiding Britain to get them.
	Howard Rubin of Hutter College says it's between 500,000 and 700,000.
	You don't go out and recruit 700,000 Cobalt and Assembler programmers overnight.
	These guys are all 60 and 70 years old.
	Nobody speaks these languages anymore.
	There are something like 400 of them.
	You can't just throw money at this problem.
	You can raise the wages of those who are in the business, but you don't get 300,000 skilled COBOL and Assembler programmers in the next three months, which is what you'd have to do, just because you throw money at it.
	They aren't there.
	They don't exist.
	So you're saying, yes, it is too late.
	It's too late.
	All right.
	You go so far as to say there will be no elections in the year 2000.
	That's my I don't believe, yes.
	I don't see how you would run them.
	And besides, what would be the point?
	If the federal government cannot collect taxes because the banks are down, if the federal government cannot distribute money because Medicare and Medicaid are down, because the social security system didn't make it because it's not compliant, If you can't distribute the money and you can't collect the money, what's the point?
	The military won't be functioning.
	You're covering so much.
	Can I be absolutely certain that if I were getting Social Security, my check at the beginning of 2000, I would not get another check?
	Is that correct?
	At present, Social Security is not compliant.
	They have worked on this since 1989.
	They haven't got it fixed.
	The reason I got into this two years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine and I happened to say, what do you think of the 2000 problem?
	And he said, it's going to collapse the system.
	And I said, why do you say that?
	He said, because I was one of the original Medicaid programmers and we programmed it knowing that it would go down in 2000.
	And I said, wait a minute, can't you fix your own code?
	He says, no.
	And the compilers we use to write it are gone, and the companies used to produce it are gone, and the guys on the team who worked on it are scattered, and they don't know where I am, and I don't know where they are, and he says, count on it.
	I guarantee you, Medicaid is going down programmed.
	Alright, well I know what compilers are.
	I used to write in BASIC and compile long ago, so I know what those are, and you're saying the compilers, or the decompilers, or both, probably don't even exist anymore.
	They don't exist.
	You actually also say there will be a collapse of all national governments in 2000?
	Yes.
	All national governments?
	All national governments.
	If you can't collect the taxes and you can't pay the army, you don't have a government.
	The U.S.
	military has not even completed its inventory of systems as of April 28.
	General Accounting Office, one month ago, said the U.S.
	military, the Department of Defense, has not completed its inventory of systems, which is the first 1% of the job.
	They don't know how many computers they've got, except it's a... well, they know the number of computers.
	Yeah, a million and a half computers, 28,000 systems.
	They are not, at this point, compliant with at least eight They won't communicate.
	So the military stops?
	The military stops.
	You say there will be collapse of every Fortune 1000 company?
	Yeah, I'm probably being optimistic there.
	Optimistic?
	Yeah, it's up because it's going to take the ones down to the two in the 5000 category, too.
	As of Wall Street Journal, April 28th made a report that said, Howard Rubin's study already has said of the largest companies, the Fortune 100, two-thirds of them have yet to devise a plan.
	Not begin working on it, Art.
	Two-thirds of the Fortune 100 companies have not devised a plan to begin working on it.
	Well, give me an example of what will happen in a Fortune 500 company, for example.
	On that day, what is going to happen?
	Well, let's say January 3rd, because that's when they come back to work from Monday.
	Because January 1st is on a Saturday.
	They will come back, assuming the banks are still open.
	And that's a huge, huge assumption.
	They will come back on a Monday morning.
	And they will find, in many cases, probably most cases, either the computers literally are shut down and not functioning, or they will not boot up, or that the data that they're throwing out at you simply don't add up.
	Because they've moved into 1900, they don't think it's 2000 anymore.
	So the problem with the data then becomes how can you trust any of the information coming out of these systems?
	And the answer is you can't unless you hand-check it.
	But you can't hand-check it because you don't have paper and ink systems to hand-check it.
	These companies will not be able to interchange data with non-compliant companies.
	Now let's consider the banks.
	Let's go to the big ones.
	13,000 banks in the United States.
	Okay, not one is compliant.
	No major money center.
	First time callers call area 702-727-1222.
	Bank is compliant.
	Now these banks exchange trillions of dollars a day, one with another.
	The wire systems that do the exchanging are not compliant.
	Now how does a bank that gets compliant Keep it self-compliant if it has to interact with 12,999 other banks, not knowing whether any of those other banks are compliant.
	Because if you take their bad data into the system, you've messed your system up.
	I understand.
	It's a systemic problem.
	Well, I think it was Britain's major who said that one day it's all going to come tumbling down, that overnight trillions of dollars are exchanged by computers and satellite, and one day there is going to be a problem And it's all going to come tumbling down.
	Without that exchange of money, everything stops.
	Yes, everything stops.
	It's the collapse of the division of labor.
	That's really what we're talking about.
	It's a collapse of the modern division of labor.
	That's the great threat to us.
	That is what we're looking at.
	All right, here's what a lot of people are going to say.
	I'll save them the trouble and I'll say it myself.
	If what you're saying is true, or even partially true, Gary, my God, the networks, for example, ought to be all over this.
	If it's almost to the inevitable point, there ought to be major stories on every network about this, getting people ready, telling them the truth about what's just around the corner.
	And if Dan Rather doesn't say it, it can't be true.
	Well, I will say this.
	ABC had me on last Thursday, and had Ed Yorden on, and treated us, I think, fairly.
	Did not say we were nutcases.
	Said we were extreme.
	That's pretty good.
	We are extreme, so that's okay.
	The point is, let's say you're a New York reporter.
	Okay.
	You've got a pension plan.
	North says you won't have one in 18 months.
	You've got a career.
	I say you won't have one in 18 months.
	I say you're living in an incredibly dangerous place to live.
	What about me, Gary?
	I'm a broadcaster.
	I'm uplinked on any number of satellites to accomplish what I do and then downlinked to radio stations and then broadcast my show.
	What's going to happen to me?
	Well, I hope you sell a lot of Beijing's because that's what it's going to take to receive the broadcast.
	The difficulty that you and I have is that we both use the web telecommunications, electricity, and we both have to be paid.
	Well, I use not only electricity, but I use the, uh, I use KU band and C band satellites.
	I use, um, all kinds of, you know, it all runs through, uh, the center in New York and then on to New Jersey where it's uplinked.
	And is all of that going to go down?
	Yes.
	Great.
	So I'm out of business.
	I want someone to get out there in the industry to show me how it isn't going to get down.
	They are linked.
	They are not compliant.
	They are completely dependent on AT&T and MCI.
	Those companies are not compliant.
	They know they're not compliant.
	For example, in my case, if a satellite goes down, Gary, we communicate to the uplink point by telephone.
	I can't point to a link on my site of a guy from AT&T who says clearly it's going down.
	Sell your stock.
	I can't point to a link on my site of a guy from AT&T who says,
	clearly it's going down.
	Sell your stock.
	Quick.
	But what you can point to in case after case is that representatives of each of the companies say we're not
	compliant now and we're working on it.
	All right.
	Hold on, Gary.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	Sometimes my own show scares the hell out of me.
	This is one of those nights.
	I'm Mark Bell.
	Well this is Coast to Coast AM.
	To be like the people I have known.
	I have been in the hell of what life is.
	From the kingdom of night, this is Coast to Coast AM.
	to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	From east of the Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, at 1-800-618-8255.
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	First time callers may reach out at area code 702-727-1222 and you may fax out at area code
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	Please limit your faxes to one or two.
	Dateline Washington, Associated Press.
	Listen to this, I'll just read you part of it.
	Scattered bug bites are already being felt.
	You know, I always jumped in and messed up my own announcer.
	I certainly don't.
	The following is from the Associated Press.
	Dateline Washington. Associated Press.
	Listen to this. I'll just read you part of it.
	Scattered bug bites are already being felt.
	For one, government is throwing out old but durable computer systems that work all right except for the Y2K
	problem.
	For another, several major Y2K tests have failed.
	In one case, a system, get this, that manages the military's vast inventory wrongly marked 90,000 items for deletion.
	The public faces a high risk that critical services could be severely disrupted.
	This is from the GAO in a report on federal agencies.
	Quote, financial transactions could be delayed, flights grounded, power lost, and national defense affected.
	End quote.
	That's the Associated Press, folks, not Gary North.
	my guess is gary north and he'll be right back once again here's gary north
	So, Gary, you're not really the only one saying this.
	I mean, I just read from the Associated Press.
	I think anyone who has watched this very carefully is now getting to the stage of, if not panic, to extreme concern, because so little has been done, despite the warnings that have been going out for the last three or four years.
	Almost nothing is being done.
	A lot of people want to know about, I'm going to ask about something very trivial by comparison, and that is personal computers.
	Are they basically okay?
	Is this a mainframe problem, or are personal computers at risk?
	All computers are at risk.
	All software must be tested.
	There are testing programs.
	You can download them free.
	I've got them listed on my site.
	You can go to it in the personal computer section.
	Go to that page.
	Download any of them.
	No computer is fully compliant, except a Macintosh that uses only Macintosh software designed only for the Macintosh.
	Those are probably compliant.
	But one of the great problems is that you've got 300 million computers out there all interacting, mostly, for example, with spreadsheets in business, and the spreadsheets have been two-digit entries.
	Those spreadsheets will not be reliable after 2000.
	So all the data coming out of your highly developed spreadsheet program that's being fed into your mainframe, or from your mainframe into your spreadsheet, all of those must be rechecked by hand.
	You can't trust any of them.
	That's your problem.
	And that's a huge problem.
	They can be fixed, but the cost of fixing them, and to make certain that every one of those spreadsheets is accurate, is simply astronomical.
	If you were the Y2K czar and you could issue orders right now about what should be done, what would you order?
	I'd tell them to subscribe to my newsletter immediately.
	But of course, your serious answer is I would... And my serious answer?
	I'd resign.
	You'd resign?
	Koskinen is the Y2K czar and he's paid to go out and give Mild-mannered speeches.
	He has said publicly, and I've got this on my site, he has said, I can't tell you really bad gloom and doom materials because it could create a panic.
	They know that.
	You can't get a straight answer out of anybody in authority.
	The only national figure, well-known national figure, who's really been pushing on this is Tony Blair.
	Of England.
	of english he is the only national figure who is really said gentleman we
	have got to get this thing fixed and he pushed and pushed what at last week's g eight
	meeting to get some kind of a statement out of the other seven
	and what came out was cornmeal much All right, here's what I've heard.
	I've heard that we are probably, as far behind as we are, and as doomed as we are in this problem, we are way ahead of a lot of the rest of the world.
	And so my question would be, if we generally get compliant, which you say we can't, but let's say we did, and the rest of the world didn't, what would happen?
	Well, you know what would happen.
	It's an international economy.
	So we have 13,000 banks compliant.
	We have none.
	But say you get them all compliant.
	You've got probably 100,000 banks internationally that you're exchanging data with, and those banks go down.
	80% of the code, or at least 78% estimate, Capra Jones' estimate, that 78% of the code in the world is outside the U.S.
	And they're not spending any money.
	What do you think Asia is spending?
	Do you think Indonesia is rolling up No, of course not.
	No, they're not doing anything.
	And yet, look, it's an international economy, international banking system.
	That's why I, you know, when I tried to get, I've done a little report on this thing that people can get for nothing.
	I can only do it because it's web-based.
	And so when I said, what am I going to call this thing?
	I said, I'm going to call it collapse.
	So it's collapse at trapped If you want my 10-page analysis of why I think it's collapsing, you just write an email to it and get it, and you get it back in 30 seconds.
	But the point is, I don't see, with the interdependence of all of us on all the rest of us, all hinged to money, all hinged to telephones, and all hinged to electrical powers, and yet the computers have threatened the banks, the computer has truly threatened the telecommunications system, And it threatened the generation and distribution of power.
	We had a very simple little taste the other day when Galaxy 4 satellite began to spin out of control and I guess it's gone for good and they're replacing it.
	But when it went, in my little town, I'll tell you something, the ATMs all stopped working.
	When you went to the supermarket and tried to put your card in to pay for the groceries, that wasn't working.
	Um, the, uh, when you tried to pay for something with a credit card, they couldn't, uh, they couldn't use their little machines to validate that your card was okay.
	All of that went down when Galaxy 4 went down.
	And that, that's just a little nothing compared to what we're talking about in 2000.
	There was that great scene, and it was a great scene, in the trigger effect where the guy was in the supermarket, and you hear this voice, and it was kind of fake because there wouldn't be any announcement system, but you heard the voice.
	And the voice said, our computers are down.
	We cannot take credit cards.
	We cannot take checks.
	Cash only.
	Small bills, please.
	Whoever wrote that script understood.
	He understood.
	Um, so potentially there could be no phone service, potentially or even probably there could be no power for periods of time or at least brownouts and blackouts.
	And what do you mean by no water, no sewers?
	Let's give a real world example.
	This actually happened.
	Horror story.
	Bad one.
	During the ice storms last January and early February in Montreal.
	Yes.
	The water treatment facility could not get power from Quebec Power because Quebec Power had shut down.
	They had power generation and enough fuel to run for another six hours to keep the water treatment facility open.
	So they went to the mayor.
	And they told the mayor, we've got to tell the public That six hours from now, if we don't get Quebec Power to restore power to us, we're going to start spewing untreated water into the system.
	Oh my God.
	The fire marshal said to the mayor, don't you tell them that, because if they do that, they'll fill their bathtubs with water.
	And if there's a fire, I will not be able to guarantee being able to put that fire out.
	And the poor mayor had to make a decision between the two bureaucrats.
	He sided with the fire marshal.
	now they were very fortunate because within that six-hour period quebec power
	did restore power operation but they came within six hours of poisoning the
	public all right well here's a very important question i think as
	we really get close to this date
	uh... the f a a all of the various banks
	banks all of these of the power grid power companies uh... we could go on and on and on
	they're going to begin to certainly know what may be about to happen so in some cases there will be
	preemptive shutdowns or brownouts winter
	well i don't like the workbook will begin to happen just before that
	critical date well i think you will begin to get brownouts uh... you will
	begin to get crisis runs
	people will begin to try to get extra water or whatever it is they think that they need.
	Stuff!
	There'll be a run on stuff.
	They're going to charge it, if they can, to their credit card.
	You're going to see the supply of stuff disappear.
	Art, the reason why we have such an incredibly productive economy, why there's been this extraordinary output of goods and services for the past 25 years, is because there are no more inventories.
	When Sam Walton He made real-time computer transactions, the basis of Walmart.
	He cut probably 20% out of the marketing expenses, and everybody had to imitate him.
	Nobody's got any inventories anymore.
	And when you don't have inventories, it means that when there is a rush to get whatever it is, you can't get it.
	Now let me give you an example.
	The Mormons have pretty much dominated the field of stored food.
	I began recommending to my clients about a year ago that they begin to buy up a year's
	supply of food for the family.
	I said, because I had gone to the largest of the wholesalers in the Mormon stored food
	business and I asked them, I said, Steve, let me ask you straight.
	If 10% of the members of the Mormon Church decided that Y2K was a reason to do what the church says it ought to do, could you meet the demand?
	He said, not a chance.
	Really?
	They are now, in some cases, backed up eight months.
	I know that we had a food supplier that sold bulk food, the year's supply of food on my program, and they were, about six months ago, beginning to get backed up in orders By about a half a year.
	Yes.
	And you think it's people that see this coming?
	Yes.
	I have been told specifically by guys in the industry that Y2K is the driving force right now of those people making the year's supply orders.
	Alright, here's another question that people are going to obviously ask.
	They're going to say, alright, I guess I believe.
	What do I do?
	What do they do?
	Well, I really have tried to deal with this in that report of mine.
	If they've got an email, just send an email to collapse at trapped.com and they'll get it back.
	Let's go to the basics.
	I've also got to cover this before you do.
	Not everybody obviously has a computer.
	Strange as that may seem to you and I. What about an address or something?
	Art, you'll swamp me.
	You've got the greatest true believers in the business out there and I'm doing this thing for free.
	I can't really do it.
	So let's quickly go through some basics.
	No joke, and I'm not paid to say this, you do buy a bay gin.
	You need communications and that's a very good way to get it.
	The next thing you do, I tell people, go out and get that year's supply of food.
	But when you call the company, you tell them, gentlemen, I want a deadline date.
	I'm not paying for this unless I can get in writing that I can get this food by a deadline date.
	So what's the date?
	They've got to be told.
	You've got to have that.
	Now the next thing you need in my opinion, it's a strong feeling of mine, I think you need to build with your church or your other community service organization some sense of what's going to happen because neighborhood is crucial and the groups around you who cooperate with you.
	can make you or break you in a crisis. I'm completely convinced of that. So you need
	neighbors, you need friends, you need other people to share this with because this is
	a real tough burden. I'd like to believe the churches were taking a strong hand in this,
	but they're not. I wish they were. The next thing I think you need is some amount of cash.
	I think you need, like they said in that wonderful scene, cash only, small bills please.
	In other words, would paper money continue to be of value if it really got bad?
	I think it would, because the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is stretched out to 24 hour a day just to do replacement of paper money.
	In a crisis, they couldn't continue to operate.
	They'll shut the Bureau of Engraving and Printing down, or at least they can't increase it any more than they're operating right now.
	So, you will have a fixed supply of paper money.
	Under those conditions, I think paper money probably will be at least better than electronic money, because there's no guarantee with electronic money.
	Now, should you have some gold and silver coins?
	Yes, I think you should.
	I think that's a basic investment that people should have.
	But I think some cash is a good idea at this point, because what are you giving up?
	3% per annum?
	That's not much to give up.
	No, that's true.
	I'm sure you have stopped several times before you would deliver this kind of a message to a national audience, and you said to yourself, am I really sure of what I'm saying?
	Are you?
	To the extent that I completely disrupted my own life.
	I sold a beautiful house that my beautiful wife was very sad to get rid of.
	I sold it at a loss to get out and get it fast enough.
	I'm living in an area where I don't have my house built yet that I want and she is unhappy and we have been disrupted for months.
	I have left what I thought was a relatively safe area to go to an even safer area.
	Now I would not do this personally.
	If I just thought that this was a possibility rather than a probability.
	So in my own personal planning, I'm telling people that I'm doing it and I think they ought to do it.
	Did I buy a year's supply of food?
	No, I bought a two year's supply of food.
	Possibility, probability, or certainty?
	Certainty is, and I mean certainty, expect at least a 1974 level recession.
	That's what you have to say is the minimal possibility.
	But I don't see any compliant system.
	We've never seen this before, Art.
	We have never been in a situation where you could date a crisis.
	What about this possibility?
	I'm getting several faxes that say things like, well, why not just put another date into these computers while you work on the problem?
	How about that?
	That is one of the strategies that some outfits have said they're using.
	You have to interconnect the data.
	Let me give you an example.
	The Internal Revenue Service has already announced that they will only accept four-digit year, four-digit century.
	That's an IRS requirement.
	Of course, they're not compliant, but that's what they have required others to have.
	There is no standard.
	There's no agreed-upon way, even to whether the century comes at the beginning or the end.
	These computers have to talk with each other.
	Joe can fix a computer one way, Fred can fix it another way, and Sam can fix it a third, and Toruro Yamamoto can fix it a fourth way, but they've got to talk with each other, they've got to agree, and each of the computers has to interact with each other, and they can't get them to interact with each other.
	So, what we do is almost academic, if not everybody else does it as well.
	That's the problem.
	It's the interoperability.
	That's the technical phrase.
	It's the problem of interoperability.
	What about national security?
	In other words, you already said, and I read something from the AP on the military, deleting items like crazy.
	What about real defense systems like ICBMs?
	Now, you may not have knowledge in this area, but our big defense ring of nuclear long shots, what about those?
	They're tied to the Global Positioning System, which is going down on August 22nd of 1999.
	What?
	All of the positioning software was designed to collapse on August 22nd of 1999.
	So, how do you know where you are and how do you know what time it is?
	The systems that depend on the Global Positioning Satellite System of the 24 U.S.
	satellites, all of those systems must be completely reprogrammed in order to compensate for the loss of 1,024 weeks that will take place on August 22nd of 99.
	Good Lord, but that includes aircraft and ships and all the navigational systems?
	That's what it includes.
	And they have got to get it fixed.
	People claim, well, they think they've got it fixed, but the Navy has posted, and has posted over a year and a half ago, a warning saying, we are not responsible if you get lost.
	Because they've said, we will lose the thousand 24 weeks.
	Now that happens even before 2000.
	So again, you've got your problem of redesigning all of this software so fast, and then deploying it and testing it, that we have simply run out of time.
	Alright, we've run out of time.
	When do you think our government, our government, forget all the rest of them, but our government will be forced to begin making public statements about what's coming?
	Or will they not do it?
	Middle of next year.
	When the bank runs again, they're going to have to take action.
	They will have to begin to confront the reality that the computer systems that the government has will not be compliant.
	So what you're going to get is a tax revolt that will begin next year.
	As soon as the general public figures out that the IRS is not going to be able to find them, Or, as the head of the IRS said a month ago, if we don't get it fixed, the public won't get its refunds.
	He said that.
	Razzati said that in front of Congress.
	Scaring the hell out of me, Gary.
	Alright, look, we're at the top of the hour.
	What I want to do is allow the public, skeptical public, to ask some hard questions.
	Can we do that?
	Yeah, let's do it.
	Alright, coming up then after the break.
	You've got a good long one.
	Hang in there.
	Gary Northman.
	is my guest, and the subject is Y2K.
	If you have questions, that's what we'll be up to when we get back.
	I'm Art Bell.
	Well this is Coast to Coast Air.
	This is a test.
	Back now to Gary Norse.
	We're about to go to the phones.
	Gary, my wife made me ask about this.
	She said, ask him, please, about gasoline.
	on-call presentation of art film.
	All right, back now to Gary Norse.
	We're about to go to the phones.
	Gary, my wife made me ask about this.
	She said, ask him, please, about gasoline.
	Now, gasoline stations, which dispense gas to us when we go up and put the hose and the nozzle into the car,
	would that continue?
	Also, trucking, we're dependent on trucking here for supplies.
	Would they be able to get fuel to move?
	What would happen to the gas stations a la the trigger effect?
	If the electricity is down, they're down.
	Because they all use electrical pumps.
	No gas?
	Not if the power's down.
	Second question is, if the power isn't down, now you get back to that wonderful scene in the trigger effect at the gas station.
	If you can't get your credit card cleared, then it has to be cash.
	And that will be a real debate and problematical situation.
	Let's give an obvious example, Art.
	If you were hiring a guy to take your quarter of a million dollar tank truck out, and you knew that guy was going to pick up the cash, At those gas stations, which you and I had paid the gas station attendant to pump the gas, how would you know your money or your truck would ever come back?
	Our whole security system is based on electronic payment.
	If electronic payments go down, then you've got your problem of how do you actually collect from your trucker whatever he was paid in cash and get your truck back?
	My opinion is There will be a drastic decrease of the amount of gasoline and the amount of trucking on the road.
	All right.
	One more.
	Here's from a senior citizen who says, look, I depend on Medicare.
	Senior citizens depend on nursing homes.
	Everybody needs to be able to get their medication.
	What's going to happen?
	You won't get it.
	You won't get it?
	You won't get it.
	That's what's going to happen.
	All right.
	Here we go.
	First time caller on the line.
	You're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	I had a question for Gary.
	Assuming there's going to be complete societal chaos, military collapse, complete infrastructure collapse, I mean I'm just scared to death and I'm thinking it might just be best to get the hell out of here.
	So where would a safe place to go be?
	Well you're in Des Moines which is actually among cities probably a pretty good area.
	I tell people in most cases if you get water you've overcome your biggest problem.
	That is water that is not dependent upon electricity to pump.
	You could probably go an hour outside of town and buy a vacation property.
	Call it a vacation property.
	You'd have to call it a survival property.
	Your wife wouldn't like that, probably.
	Call it a vacation property.
	An hour, 90 minutes outside of town.
	Put a mobile home on it and a well.
	If you were to do that, in all honesty, you would probably increase your likelihood of getting through this thing by 50, 60, 70%.
	A mobile home and a well?
	Yeah.
	That doesn't sound like a lot of money, and compared to what most people have in their 401ks, it isn't a lot of money.
	But people won't do it.
	Well, that's what I've got, a mobile home and a well.
	Yeah?
	Actually, Art, you probably won't make it.
	We just won't be able to listen to you.
	You know, that part of it bothers me a lot.
	It's like, I guess I should do a Y2K program.
	In fact, you know what?
	I'll be on the air that night.
	God, I'll be on the air.
	I'll go on the air.
	Well, let's see.
	It'll already be Y2K time by the time I go on the air on the East Coast.
	So maybe I won't be on the air that night.
	It'll be interesting to see.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Gary North, hello.
	Hello, this is Mary Ann, I'm calling from Ventura.
	Ventura, yes.
	My question is, I've read, and I'm sorry I can't cite the exact source today, I don't remember, but under the rules or auspices of FEMA, I've read that the government will have the authority to confiscate food supply no matter That's a very good point.
	In other words, there will be some with food, there will be many or most without food, but as she points out, there is this presidential directive that some have heard about that would allow the confiscation of food.
	I have looked for that.
	FEMA is incredibly dead silent on this issue, given the fact that FEMA really is in charge of emergency management in this country.
	There is nothing that I have been able to find on the FEMA site, and I've looked, relating to the year 2000.
	How can that be?
	I mean, that is their mandate.
	Yes, you bet it is, and that's what is so incredibly suspicious.
	Because of any topic that ought to be on the FEMA site, it's this one.
	Now, admittedly, some of you out there are web surfers.
	If you find out something, go to my site, Communicate with me.
	Send me the link.
	I'll put it up.
	But I've looked.
	I can find nothing on the FEMA site related to Y2K.
	All right.
	Ease to the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	This is Wanda in Raleigh, North Carolina.
	Hi, Wanda.
	And I'd like to ask your guests to quiet.
	Well, first of all, I want to say you definitely have my attention.
	It's the first time I've been frightened of anything in my life.
	Okay.
	I own my own home.
	Okay.
	Could I ask, did you say Raleigh?
	I have a very limited cash flow.
	Yes.
	Could I ask, did you say Raleigh?
	Yes.
	In the city limits?
	No, I am 20 miles outside of the city limits.
	I am sorry, I am not sure.
	I own my home and I have a well that pumps... I have an artesian well, so I've got 100 gallons a minute.
	Well, basically I would tell you you've done what 99% of the public would like to do or will want to do in 2000.
	You've done it.
	You are in much better shape than the vast majority of Americans.
	My opinion is the most important thing you do is get some food in.
	And make certain that you can pump that well and indicate that you can.
	I would say sit tight.
	It sounds to me as if you're in a much better situation than most people.
	Okay.
	Thank you very much.
	I'll be listening for further.
	Thank you all.
	Thank you, ma'am.
	And I know this is a very sensitive question, but as you recall in that movie that we talked about tonight, The Trigger Effect, which we have been recommending to people before we even talked, they quickly, things quickly got out of hand.
	Now, if you have a lot, And somebody else has a little.
	They're going to want to take what you've got away.
	And it brings up a sensitive question of protecting what you've got.
	Any comments?
	Are you talking to me?
	Oh, yes.
	Oh, you've lost her.
	Yes, indeed.
	We're all here.
	Good.
	I think the right of self-defense is certainly legitimate.
	And I think, however, and this is important.
	This is really important.
	The key to that movie, as I think about that movie, the key fact of the movie was not the trigger, but the effect.
	That's right.
	The key to that movie is understanding the breakdown of community.
	Because at the end of the movie, they do get to go back to the city.
	Somehow the lights are restored, but it is clear as he's sitting on his front porch that he'll never trust his neighbors again.
	That's right.
	And that theme, it was subtle, but powerful in the movie.
	It was the story of the breakdown of community trust.
	And that's why I want to stress, and I really believe this, if you're in a situation where you have to have a gun to protect yourself, do whatever you can to get in a situation that's better, where you can trust your neighbors.
	I hear you.
	Alright, ma'am, have we answered your question?
	Yes, I'd like to ask one more question.
	When we had a hurricane plan that came up from the coast up through Raleigh.
	I well remember.
	Right.
	We were without electricity for about nine days.
	It was absolutely miserable.
	And I live in a relatively small community, housing development outside the city.
	Everyone did band together because no one had generators.
	So we had to use all of our frozen food.
	And as a small community, which was shocking to everyone, we didn't know each other.
	And, you know, like shared food.
	But, you know, if this thing happens, I'm going to be probably the only person on this property lot that has enough water for everyone.
	Well, you're going to be a popular lady.
	Well, maybe I can barter.
	Is that how this is going to work?
	I think that's perfectly legitimate.
	Thank you, ma'am.
	Yeah, bartering.
	That would be as well another alternative to cash, wouldn't it?
	Bartering.
	Yes.
	I've got this, you've got that.
	That's trade.
	But remember, Art, yes, it can be done, but the brilliance of the free market modern economy is that you do it by money because barter is not very efficient.
	I mean, if you don't have what I've got, I'm out of luck.
	No, it's desperate, of course, but I mean, it is one possibility of obtaining something you want.
	Yes, that is correct.
	Okay, West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hello.
	Hi, this is Scott from Arizona.
	Hello, Scott.
	You'd be happy to know my computer is at January 1st, year 2000.
	It's about 114.
	It seems to be running okay.
	That answered your question about checking your computer.
	My major question was, What everything's relating down to is they're not upgrading their systems because of money, correct?
	That's one reason.
	If they don't upgrade and everything goes down, there's not going to be any money anyway.
	Why don't they upgrade now?
	I don't understand that at all.
	Because people defer until next quarter and the next quarterly budget report making any decision Involving the expenditure of large quantities of money.
	And you can see that, if the hundred largest companies of America, if two-thirds of them, have not yet even developed a plan to deal with Y2K, which is what Rubin says, and I believe him, then we've got a situation where deferral and denial are dominant in the thinking of the decision makers.
	Because nobody wants to be blamed for spending $200, $300, $500 million.
	That's what has been budgeted by Citicorp, 600 million dollars.
	300 million dollars.
	Bank of America, actually 350.
	300 million dollars with Case Manhattan Bank.
	Now, they haven't spent it.
	They've spent maybe a quarter of it, but that's the kind of numbers we're talking about, and nobody wants to do it.
	Yeah, but you're not going to have any money.
	Yes.
	That's nothing when you have no money flowing in.
	You got it.
	I just don't grasp that at all.
	Because it's not their money.
	It's not their personal money.
	What they have to hope for, and I think you're going to see it beginning early next year, is that they can cash out their position and go into quiet retirement with whatever they get for their retirement obligations, and they're going to sell on their stock options, and off they're going to go.
	Is there going to be a lot of that?
	I mean, people liquidating, sort of a circle of people who will be in the know, who will liquidate and go away quietly for a long time?
	That's exactly, that's one of the things you want to look for, for those of you who are stock watchers, is insider trading early next year.
	The legal liability that these People will face is so gigantic that the general estimate is in the United States of one trillion dollars of litigation.
	Of course.
	In the year 2000 and beyond, if the system holds, it will be the ultimate feast day of the lawyers if the system holds.
	Oh, there's no question about it.
	Thank you, Coleridge.
	Look, if, for example, I went off the air, Rush Limbaugh went off the air, the company that And I think it's going to go, in the case of board and trustee members, it will not just be corporate, it will be personal.
	They'll say it's personal liability.
	so there's gonna be a lot of litigation going on and i think it's going to go in
	the case of and trustee members it will not just be corporate it will
	be personal they'll say it's a personal liability
	and the lawyers are gathering i have a whole section of my website under litigation
	you can see the extent to which the lawyers are putting on seminars for each
	other on how to get ready for y2k litigation
	point circuits are circling vultures uh... first-time caller line you're on the road during or
	tomorrow hello
	highly yes you can't where are you listening and then you know okay
	and and one good thing i have going for me is that i don't have a lot of money
	from where I'm sorry.
	Unfortunately, I also rely on SSI.
	I'm a young mother with four children, very poor, and I've been listening to you for about a year now and the thing about your radio station that fascinated me was mostly the comment things and all the different things about the stuff and I try to talk to my family about it because it's exciting.
	Well, now I'm scared to death.
	I can't sleep.
	I got you on every radio station in my house.
	And I said, OK, I'm calling.
	I wrote down my little lamp number.
	All right, well, I hate to say this, but I bet that it's true.
	We'll ask Gary.
	Usually when this kind of thing happens, the people with means make out the best.
	And the poor people, particularly those dependent on our government for checks, I'm sorry, but are going to be the ones that are going to get hurt the most.
	Is that true, Gary?
	If they're in the cities, it is.
	Yeah, I'm in a small city.
	San Diego's a pretty good size.
	Yeah, I'm in a small city in San Diego.
	I don't know what to do.
	I talk to my family that does have money.
	They do have jobs.
	My aunt works for a big company that makes a lot of money in computers.
	I talk to her about, oh, don't worry about blah, blah, blah.
	She's bragging about money she's making and now it's going to be gone.
	What are they going to do?
	What am I going to do because nobody that does have money right now that could set up
	something ahead of time?
	Don't listen to me.
	They don't listen to me either so don't feel bad.
	I don't have internet anymore and stuff like that.
	I do have a computer, which is bothering me because I'm not knowledged in the computer thing.
	I don't know what's going to happen.
	I should go back in and turn the clock back.
	One thing you can do, almost every large city public library now has internet connection, usually for free.
	So I would go to the library, if you really want to study this thing, and you can go to my site, www.garynorth.com, and what I've done, and I did this deliberately, on my site, you can click through to the original document that I'm quoting from, and you can read it for yourself or print it out.
	I wanted verification that people say, yeah, he's not faking it, there really is documentation on this.
	So I would go to the public library and spend a couple of hours, if you can, in a week or maybe, you know, go on a Saturday and just look at it for yourself.
	Do you think that most people who go through your material are going to believe it?
	I mean, does it seem, when you read through it, it really takes your time, to be irrefutable?
	Belief is a very complex thing, Art.
	Believe has to do with people's conditions and what they think they can do in response and what they've been raised to believe.
	Belief is not just looking at documents.
	But I will say this, I have really devoted a lot of time, probably close to 1,500 hours that I could have been using on my own personal preparation to create this site to say at least If I'm going to make these wild conclusions, I at least have provided the best evidence that I can to justify the conclusions, and then people get to make up their own minds.
	That's all that I could do.
	Good enough, Gary.
	That's generally what I do on this program, too.
	Hold tight.
	We'll be right back.
	It's the bottom of the hour.
	Gary North is my guest.
	He's up late, never up this late, so I really want to thank him for hanging in there with us to tell this story tonight.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	Now, from the Kingdom of Nye, more Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	Here again is Art.
	Gary, what is likely to occur to the telephone system?
	I was just sitting here thinking, you know, if I couldn't give out 800 numbers, not that I'd be on the air, but I'd be out of biz anyway.
	Yeah, by the way, Art, let me say with respect to that, if I get cut off, it's because we're starting to get one of these Arkansas lightning storm, so it's not because I'm angry, it's because we got hit.
	Just a warning.
	I understand the weather, by the way, has been turning rather south on us.
	Now, the question of the telecommunications is really crucial for both of our businesses, for obvious reasons.
	I would like to believe that the companies have it ready to go, that there's not going to be a problem.
	They are really silent on it.
	There is almost nothing published.
	What little that is published is the standard form letter stuff that says, well, we'll be ready to test this in late 98 and we'll probably get it done sometime next year.
	And I wish them the best.
	But the complexity of 500 million lines of code is very great complexity, which is what AT&T is facing.
	The Telecom Managers Association, the president of it, of Great Britain, has said that he thinks there's a very real possibility that nobody will be able to phone out of Britain in the year 2000.
	That, of course, would shut down the banking system because the computers couldn't communicate with each other.
	So again, on this one, I don't want to overstate it.
	I'll simply say this, there is no evidence that any telecommunications company is at present compliant, and there's no evidence that I have ever seen published on the web that says the interconnections between the various companies, that that problem has been solved.
	I am assuming, however, that the banks are totally vulnerable, even if the telcos aren't, So they can call my 800 number, but I don't think they're going to be able to buy, because I think you're going to have a banking crisis.
	I hear you.
	Alright, this is an average Joe kind of question, and then we'll go back to the homes.
	Most people make a car payment.
	Most people make a mortgage payment.
	Right?
	Yes.
	I mean, we certainly have those in utility payments.
	Now, if the power goes off, you don't have to worry about the utilities.
	But what about car payments?
	What about people that we owe money to?
	What about mortgage payments?
	Are cars going to be repossessed?
	Are houses going to be foreclosed on?
	Why?
	Very doubtful.
	And now we get back to that original question you raised, Art, which was, well, if I think it's going to happen, do I go out and run up the charge card?
	The answer is, of course people are going to do that, because they'll figure out there'll be almost no way to get repossessions.
	The court system will be so jammed up If it exists at all, it will be so jammed up with who owes me what in the billion dollar range that the little nickel and dime stuff of a thousand here and a thousand there is not going to be relevant.
	Those issues will never get settled.
	The difficulty is the companies that relied upon those payments will be out of business.
	That's why I think you're going to have a horrendous bankruptcy rate for what you have just described.
	People won't pay.
	People won't pay and they'll stay right where they are.
	They'll stay because they have no choice but to stay where they are.
	So my opinion is you are going to see a collapse.
	I mean absolutely no questions asked collapse of those large mortgage lending organizations, federally insured lending organizations because they will be stiffed By literally tens of millions of mortgage holders who will simply stop paying.
	And there's no way to come repossess the house.
	You couldn't get it through the courts.
	And even if you did, who are you going to sell it to?
	I think I'm starting to get a headache.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hello.
	Good morning, Art.
	Good morning.
	Where are you?
	Out in cyberspace, listening through audio net.
	Well, I mean, but physically.
	Oh, OK.
	Well, not too far from you, over in El Paso.
	El Paso, Texas.
	All right.
	Yeah, I'm a dinosaur.
	I'm one of the programming dinosaurs Gary's talking about.
	I speak Cobalt, Assembler, Fortran, and all those dead languages.
	And believe me, he's understating the degree of the problem and what has happened over the last, in my case, 26 years.
	Some of us had the good sense to see what was coming, but in every case we would get overruled Go on behind our backs, have the code ripped out, have the space ripped out, and it's just... I don't even know what the word I'm looking for is.
	Malicious negligence?
	Well, programmers are pretty smart people.
	Shouldn't they have seen what would... I mean, even if you take it from after the punch card days and when we finally got into real computers, At that point, shouldn't the alarm bells have been going off?
	They were.
	For people like you?
	They were.
	They were.
	We did.
	And management overruled us.
	Do you have any... The argument being, we can't afford two extra characters for a date in that record.
	I mean, look how many records we've got.
	We'll have to buy an extra disc drive.
	Yeah, and they were expensive then.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, $50,000.
	I mean... And, uh... I mean... I, at one point, was...
	Ripped a new one from both sides for wanting to include a mechanism to take care of this problem in some systems, because the argument that I was given was, who cares?
	We won't be working here by then.
	And Art, this was in a criminal justice system.
	Great.
	Imagine what it will be like when it rolls over and suddenly hundreds of millions of criminal records disappear.
	Can that happen, Gary?
	Art, I do prison evangelism, or at least did until I moved to Arkansas, with a maximum security prison in Texas.
	And I was friends with one of the guys who's sort of your jailhouse lawyer type.
	Right.
	And I warned him over a year ago.
	I said, don't make a lot of noise.
	But be certain that the guys you work with have got paper records of when they are to be released, and that those records must be in their possession.
	Because I said, they're going to lose your records.
	And you've got to be able to prove that if you're legitimately allowed to get out, that you will get out.
	I warned them.
	Yes, what he's telling is guaranteed.
	And the worst part about it, even wanting to do anything about it now, is I'd say in the last 12 to 15 years, the mindset of management and the programming and the data processing industry changed so much that programming ceased to be an art.
	It became a job that any bozo off the street could be taught with All the new programming techniques where you didn't have to know diddly about anything, and now you've got offices full of 20- and 30-year-olds that wouldn't know a PAX date if it jumped up and did them.
	Well, all right.
	Thank you, Collar.
	So that's true, then.
	And these older programming languages, Gary, in order to fix this, in a lot of cases, As you point out, they're not going to be able to do it in the older programming languages.
	We don't have the programmers for that.
	What about rewrites in the newer language?
	It's too late.
	Look, Art, he's talking about a mindset that was built into management 20 years ago that wouldn't pay.
	These systems are gigantic.
	The interconnections are gigantic.
	We're not talking about small systems.
	They're huge systems that we're talking about here, with interconnections into the millions.
	Let me give you an example, and I've got this on the site.
	There was an Air Force system that they went into to try to fix.
	That system had 70, that's seven zero, different computer languages in the one system.
	All of them, except for Cobol and maybe Assembler.
	All of the rest of them virtually forgotten.
	These languages, these systems have been built 25 and 30 years ago, and the guys who built them are gone.
	They're dead or retired.
	Yeah, like that guy.
	Retired.
	Like that guy.
	And he tried to point it out a long time ago and got absolutely nowhere.
	That is what happened to any of them who tried to point it out.
	Their careers were on the line, and management did not want to listen.
	There's joint responsibility in this.
	But ultimately, management's got the bucks.
	And if management won't do it, the programmer is stuck, just like he was.
	So programmers in these languages are going to be real popular guys for a while.
	For a period, they will be popular.
	And the best of them are getting huge amounts of money.
	The really most skilled ones.
	But remember, Art, these guys are not dummies.
	They can look and they can say pretty confidently that one of two things will happen.
	Either the company I work for is going to go belly up sometime in the second half of 99 or early 2000, or I'm going to fix it and then they're going to fire me again.
	They're not real interested in going back to New York City if they're sitting on the beach in Boca Raton.
	No, that's true.
	I'm in Wichita, Kansas.
	I work on Y2K projects, and he is right about the fact that there's an awful lot of source code out there that's obsolete.
	But the one thing about it I do know, because I work on IBM Mainframe, that IBM has done an awful lot with the new upgrades to their operating system over the last ten years.
	To force these companies into Y2K compliance.
	In fact, this is what we're doing right now for the company that I'm under contract to is we're in the process of converting all their software into full compliance with Y2K and we'll be ready to go by the end of this year as far as Well, that's really good, but even if you are compliant, if all the people you deal with, your suppliers, the people who buy from you, if they have no electricity and no phones and no internet... Well, I'll make you a bet that they'll have the internet, they'll have the supplies, everything else, because one of the things you're running into, you know, he talks about putting the century on the date?
	That's right.
	In most cases, if you go out and start looking at the new date routines, they don't carry century.
	They're basing it off of a base date that's, say, well, an example with the IBM, of the new IBM software, they use a date that they call Lillian Date, which is the number of days that have elapsed, say, for the current date from the year of, well, it's December 31st, 1600.
	That's one option that they're using.
	Our problem, Art, is that he can't repair all the systems.
	IBM, sir, is not compliant, is it?
	Neither is EBS.
	there's another thing to remit comment about the criminal justice system are
	they but one one thing at a time okay uh... that attacked first one uh... gary
	you know anything about that that's one
	option that they're using our problem art is that he
	can't repair all assisted i'd be answer is not compliant is that neither is the
	ds the company's themselves are not compliant
	I'm hiring outsiders to get compliant.
	IBM is not compliant as a company.
	If this is so easy to fix, how come the guys selling the services like EDS and IBM have not got their own companies compliant?
	This is the blind leading the blind.
	Those companies aren't compliant.
	What do you think is going to happen to IBM if you're right?
	Do you, I mean, the magnitude of the lawsuits, will there be a trace of IBM in 2001 when the lawyers get through with that company?
	Not a chance.
	They'll be blamed for it all.
	Every company dependent upon an IBM product or someone like you working for IBM, those companies, those individuals will have a big neon sign that says, lawyers, come and get me.
	You have any comments, Colin?
	Well, I have a comment for him.
	If I were the lawyers, I wouldn't plan on it.
	Another question, another comment I want to make to him.
	The lawyers are planning for it.
	I know they are planning for it, but I'm saying that it's not as big an issue as he's making it to be.
	Alright, well go ahead with something else.
	Okay, another question, another point I want to make to him.
	You're talking about the Arkansas criminal justice system?
	I was talking about the Texas, but go ahead.
	Okay, the Arkansas, well the Texas is probably It's pretty much in the same shape because they were forced into compliance about four years ago as far as Y2K was concerned by the federal government.
	Once again, because I'm a contractor, I was in Arkansas when they were in the process of rewriting those systems.
	In the same way with the new child support enforcement systems.
	If I were somebody who was making child support payments, don't plan on getting by with not making those payments as of year 2000, because once again, those systems are in compliance.
	How are you going to pay him?
	Are you going to write a check?
	You have to write a check or you can go down and pay him in cash.
	I do it.
	I do it every two weeks.
	Sir, there aren't going to be any banks.
	whatever you do it because i want to call her hold on a second caller hold on
	a sec go ahead gary
	there can be any bank there's no compliant bank on or
	there's no money better bank that's compliant How are you going to write the check?
	I want to ask you a question.
	Hold it, Caller.
	He asked you a valid question.
	What's that?
	There is no compliant bank.
	How are you going to write a check?
	Okay, I want to ask you a question.
	No, wait a minute, Caller.
	Answer that one first.
	Okay.
	First of all, I disagree with it.
	Okay, would you please name the compliant bank And tell me how you found out.
	Okay, well you ask me, answer me a question.
	What do you define as compliant?
	I define as compliant any bank that will let its lawyers write to the customer to say this bank is 2000 compliant and we have let go all of our 2000 Y2K repair staff because we don't need them.
	Citicorp can't do it.
	Chase Manhattan can't do it.
	Bank of America can't do it.
	No Japanese bank can do it.
	Come on!
	Let's get real.
	Okay, we're not in compliance because we are in the process of getting it done.
	Lots of luck, Jack.
	I'll tell you what, I'll make you a bet.
	Since you're in Arkansas, and I'm in Arkansas, year 2000, when it comes to pass, I'll meet you at the stake and ale.
	If you lose, you will buy.
	If we lose, I'll buy you dinner there.
	What are you going to buy it with?
	I've got cash.
	Come on, man.
	All right.
	That's a no-win situation for me.
	If I'm right, you can't pay.
	Let's go on.
	Let's talk something serious.
	Where's the compliant bank?
	Yeah, that's pretty serious.
	He has no answer for that.
	And every time I tried to get him to answer that, he simply wanted to ask you another question.
	So there you are.
	We are at the top of the hour.
	You've got a break, and I'm sure you need one, Gary, so hold on.
	And we'll be back to you after the break at the top of the hour.
	I'm Art Bell, and of course, this is Coast to Coast AM, and we are absolutely swamped with requests for copies of this program already, so let me give you the number, and if you can't get through now because they are swamped, just keep trying.
	It will be, by the time it's over, it's going to be a four-hour program, and it's probably a program that you want to get And to a friend, or give to a business, or give to your business associates, I would think.
	The number to get a copy is 1-800-917-4278.
	That is a 24-hour number, but right now it's going into utter logjam.
	That number again is 1-800-917-4278.
	is 1-800-917-4278.
	That is a 24-hour number, but right now it's going into utter logjam.
	That number again is 1-800-917-4278.
	We'll take a break.
	Check out the news at the top of the hour and be right back.
	I'm Art Bell and this is a very thought-provoking Coast to Coast AM.
	Music playing.
	Silence.
	Music playing.
	And now, back to the best of Art Bell.
	Let me try one other question with Gary.
	Gary, welcome back.
	Thank you for staying up so late.
	I think when I first tried to book you for the program, you said you haven't been up this late since you were 19.
	That's probably about right.
	People are suggesting the possibility of patches.
	In other words, that some programmers, perhaps, Well, I keep thinking of Citicorp, and they're spending, they say, $600 million to fix it.
	and fix the problem. What about that approach?
	Well, I keep thinking of Citicorp, and they're spending, they say, $600 million to fix it.
	When Citicorp spends $600 million to fix it, that's either a real expensive patch, or else there isn't a patch.
	Or else there isn't one.
	The federal government, I think, is low-balling it, talking now $5.5 billion to fix it.
	The figures that come out from these large organizations are gigantic.
	We really should ask that of the programmers who call in.
	They did have patches before, by the way.
	You know, this happened before, twice.
	People forget about that, but it happened first in 1969, back when it was a one-digit patch, and they hadn't foreseen it.
	And frantically, IBM in 69 alerted people and created a patch to get into 70.
	It happened again in 79.
	So we've had this thing go through the wringer twice.
	But now, when you get to the 2000, the whole architecture is at stake.
	Now, by the way, Art, let's now go, at least briefly, to mention the other problem.
	And this, in my opinion, is the big one.
	We haven't talked about it.
	That's embedded chips.
	The chips that are built into the microprocessors and into all kinds of telecommunications equipment and electrical equipment.
	The chips themselves have been programmed with the Millennium Bug in them.
	The latest I have seen was David Hall.
	By the way, it's not the David Hall of the coin selling, but David Hall, the programmer.
	He hit me with a new one just in the last week.
	He estimates $40 billion.
	Chips have been produced and he's estimating now above one, possibly as high as five percent are defective.
	Now that means not only must you find those chips, you've got to find a way of locating them in the system.
	Then testing them.
	Then you've got to replace them by hand.
	Now the difficulty is if they're over three years old, they're probably out of production.
	And they won't fit in the motherboards.
	Now, these chips run our satellites.
	They're 10,000 feet below sea level running North Sea oil drilling rigs.
	You have got embedded chips and embedded programming systems built into the entire modern world systems.
	And by the way, you quoted that statement, which is an accurate statement, the British statement about one in seven hospitals maybe not making it.
	That's right.
	The embedded chip problem is one of the biggest problems that the hospitals are facing because they've got them in the diagnostic equipment and they are not compliant.
	There are whole systems that are not compliant and they've been not compliant for over a year or two.
	They've known about it and they can't get updates on them.
	Now, these systems, you don't just hire a bunch of programmers.
	You can't hire programmers.
	You have to have the chip in production, ready to be substituted when, in fact, you find them.
	Now, we're talking anywhere from 25 million to 50 million defective chips, but we don't know where they are.
	Try this one.
	I work for a gigantic company called J-Core.
	If I were to call J-Core and have somebody high in management, which I could do, Call our suppliers, mainly General Electric, Hughes, the satellite people, MCI, the people we depend on for our communication links to get this program on the air, and demand to know if these companies are Y2K compliant, so I'll know whether I'll be on the air or not.
	What kind of answer would I get?
	I'll tell you what the answer you're going to get.
	You'll get a form letter.
	And by the way, you should do this.
	Absolutely, you should do this.
	You're going to get a form letter back, if you get anything back.
	It will say, we are very diligent.
	We've known about this problem for, and it boils down to, months.
	They'll say maybe 1995, the real conservative ones.
	We've already heard from one caller that it's been in there for 20 years or more.
	They'll tell you, we are really diligently working on this and we've hired this team to work on it.
	And we expect to have the coding done on December 31st, 1998, leaving one full year for testing.
	Now the answer to that is, by the way, fellas, where are you going to get the excess computer capacity to run the parallel testing?
	Because to do a thorough test, you've got to run the data in So, that's a monstrous hardware problem?
	one and you got to make certain that the fixed repaired one doesn't shut down at
	some point which means you've got a double your computer capacity in order
	to run the tests you've got a double the size of the number of programmers on
	your staff to run the parallel that's a monstrous hardware problem that's a
	person that kind of hardware it's impossible it can't be done
	And yet to get accurate testing, that's what you need to do.
	All right.
	The size of this problem is just staggers the mind.
	Now, again, let me go back to when our government will begin dealing with it in the sense of beginning to make announcements, beginning to mandate, that's what the government does, and beginning to address the people with regard to what's going to occur.
	How are they going to... How do you imagine the government is going to approach this to the masses?
	I don't think the government is going to be able to approach it to the masses until such time as the freeze on the bank accounts takes place.
	They cannot possibly go public with this while the public still has access to the bank accounts.
	So, what I think is being done, and is being done rapidly over the last 45 days, especially Friday, last Friday, President Clinton signed a document which has not been released, but he referred to it Friday in his speech to the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
	An emergency cyber-terrorism series of orders.
	We have not yet seen it.
	I've been searching the web.
	There are trickles of information out, but he did talk about it.
	I've got his speech posted.
	On my site, it was to the Naval Academy.
	He has signed a series of documents beginning February 4th of this year, which are leading to emergency reactions against the unnamed and unidentified cyber terrorist organizations.
	Now see, here's the advantage that that has.
	Nobody is going to be in favor of letting cyber-terrorists get away with anything.
	So what did they do?
	Last week, they had those masked guys in the suits, who would not give their last names, testify before Senator Thompson's committee.
	All of them saying, we shut down the internet, or we disrupted the internet, it was easy.
	Yeah, they said actually, we could take the entire internet down in 30 minutes.
	Yes, that's what they said.
	They may be telling the truth.
	I'm not going to say that's not true.
	Maybe they can do that.
	But the point is, we are getting an orchestrated series of warnings against an amorphous, vague group, or multiple groups, that can do this.
	But remember the advantage from a political standpoint.
	This is not dateable.
	And you can't identify which group is going to do it.
	So the public does not have the fear that says on a particular date, all over the world, the same effect is going to take place.
	Now the government has admitted in that fact list on the PCCIP site, they've admitted that the effect of Y2K is the same as cyber terrorism.
	So the point is, when this happens, They can blame it either on cyber-terrorists or getting ready for cyber-terrorists, and the same rapid deployment forces can be used.
	The same strategy of defense is going to be employed.
	But they can now talk about it without scaring everybody to death to say there is a specific date on which it's going to happen.
	Gotcha.
	Alright, back to the lines we go.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Where are you, please?
	I am in Virginia.
	I had a quick comment for Gary, and then I had a question.
	A quick comment.
	One big problem the government has, and a lot of other companies do, are the original programmers.
	Once they write a module, especially if it's not really documented well, the minute that guy leaves or is fired or whatever, that becomes a black box.
	They know what they put in and they know what they get out, but they have no idea what's in it.
	So you've got to sit there and go through the whole thing to be able to do anything to it.
	In other words, you've got to reinvent the wheel?
	Yeah.
	Of course that's true, yes.
	A lot of the programmers who did this are long gone or retired.
	So a lot of companies are going to have to, in effect, reinvent the wheel.
	Yeah, you're right.
	A question?
	A lot of time and money.
	Your question, sir?
	I'm a retired geologist.
	I'm heading down to Panhandle, Florida, and it is an artesian area.
	I was just kind of thinking about what kind of survival kit.
	I was thinking, you know, 100 pounds or so of salt.
	I've got a charcoal-fired smoker, but I'm just wondering what else you would advise people to kind of There is a catalog called the Lehman's Catalog.
	They went into business about 1955 to serve the Amish.
	They are products that are non-electrical.
	That's a very good catalog.
	I don't have the address in front of me, but you can find it on the web.
	L-E-H-M-A-N apostrophe S. I think there's an apostrophe.
	But Lehman's catalog and the kinds of 2,000 or more products that are in that catalog, I think, are things you've got to think about.
	Non-electrical operation.
	But you start, as you already have said, sir, you start with water.
	That is your first criterion.
	Then you work from there.
	You have to have independent source of water if you're going to survive this in a worst-case scenario.
	So I think that's where you start.
	Now, as of today, as of May 26th, are you thinking now that it's going to be mild, or where between mild and worst case do you think now, as of today, it's going to fall?
	Worst case.
	You think worst case?
	Yes.
	I'm planning on that assumption.
	I'm investing on that assumption.
	I'm warning people on that assumption.
	Better than worst case, I shall be ecstatic.
	My greatest single fear in this is the shutdown of the power grid.
	That's the great problem.
	Oh, there's no question about it.
	If that goes, everything goes.
	Again, I tell people, if you want to know how it is, just go turn off the mains to your house and spend about an hour sitting there.
	It'll all be apparent to you.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi, this is Patrick, currently of Tucson.
	Thankfully, soon-to-be Patrick, once again, of San Diego.
	Thank you, God.
	I have a couple quick comments and then two quick questions.
	Sure.
	It seems to me that we could be headed for a Wild West scenario where, forget the militias and the survivalists, the people in the catbird seat are going to be military, National Guard, and law enforcement personnel.
	It would be interesting to see what kind of morals these people have.
	I'm thinking of the Marjo Gordner character in Earthquake.
	It also seems that family members who are separated geographically now in different states are going to be completely isolated because of no travel, no communications.
	That's a good point.
	My two quick questions were, I was not a twinkle in anybody's eye when the 29 crash and the depression occurred.
	Are people going to have problems with banks if they have cash in safety deposit boxes?
	And my second question is, if this is a global situation, are we going to be in greater or lesser danger of surprise or accidental nuclear attack?
	Both good questions, one at a time.
	Safety deposit boxes.
	Cash in safety deposit boxes.
	What do you think, Gary?
	I think up until late 99, that's a safe place to put some of your money.
	Afterwards, you have the whole question, will you be allowed in, or in fact, will vaults work?
	But in any case, you're going to have a great amount of fear, and they may even, conceivably, they may even lock the boxes.
	That is the threat.
	Remember, in 29, the largest banks did survive.
	At least in the United States.
	It was the smaller country banks that went down.
	This time, it is the whole system that is at risk.
	And so, anybody who is not in a position of saying, look, the old rule, and I call it Max's Law, a friend of mine's father, Max Blumberg, had it, and it's a good law, write it down, buy the best, pay cash, take delivery.
	That is a really good law.
	And I think it's a rule that we all should use as much as possible.
	Now the second question on military attack or military disruption.
	My personal opinion is the great winner of all of this is likely to be Red China.
	I don't think they're going to launch an attack on us, but I think they will become the dominant force in the Asian area because they have a gigantic army and a gigantic navy And most of their technology is pre-computer, because they didn't have the money to computerize the systems.
	Yes, it is.
	So, now, I'm not saying there are no computers there.
	Their financial system, their banks, they're in the same soup as the rest of us.
	But if you're talking about sheer military power, the Red Chinese, I think, will be the dominant force in the world in the year 2000.
	Well, I've been there.
	I've been to Red China, and I can tell you from just sitting there and watching the commerce, Unbelievable.
	It is one of the most frightening things I've ever seen.
	If nothing else happened, Gary, China is going to be the dominant economic nation in another decade or two at the most, if nothing else happened.
	I mean, they are just going to take over everything.
	It's a dominant force.
	Now, with respect to us, I really do not think that any nation in this hemisphere is going to be in a position To launch attacks, or any of the rest of it, simply because the fundamental fact of every government is this.
	There is only one law of government, and that is you've got to pay your army.
	All other laws are secondary.
	When you cannot pay your army, you cease to have a government.
	You're certainly correct.
	So my assumption is that domestic control, domestic violence, domestic terrorism, the gang culture, That is what the military forces in this country are going to have to be dealing with.
	It's a Mad Max scenario, they call it.
	I'm afraid that's it.
	And the gangs are very well organized, exceedingly well organized, in the larger cities.
	And so, in a way, a gang is a government looking for territory.
	And when the conventional government organizations begin to break down because their telecommunications system is not compliant, and 9-1-1 is not compliant, and all the other factors that are involved in paying... Gary, Gary, hold on.
	Of course.
	Hold on.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	I'm Mark Bell.
	Well, this is Coast to Coast AM.
	And now, back to the best of Art Bell.
	All right, back to Gary Northcott.
	Gary, here's a question for you.
	I'm beginning to think this is so serious that I should get a monthly update of some kind and get it on the air at the very least.
	Could I come to you, even if it's pre-recorded and we do it during the daytime when you generally live, could we do sort of a monthly update or something?
	Yeah, that'd be alright.
	The second part of the question is, there's going to be a lot of other media, after I run something like this, that I think ought to be addressing this, and they're going to probably want to get hold of you.
	So, not for the average person, but for media.
	New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Sun, whatever.
	If they want to get hold of you, is there any way for them to do it?
	Well, the best way is...
	simply to go to my website and uh... send you a mail you can send email but
	Yes.
	or you can send it just a i have a uh... a l well i have pretty good i got a
	gary north at a well dot com
	specific they can send a something to me there but again uh... in all honesty
	really does have most of what i know that i know that the media they like people
	Yeah, I know.
	I know.
	It's not good enough just to have all of it written.
	It's not good enough.
	But you go to GaryNorth.com and you got the thing.
	Or you call, you know, CollapseAtTrack.com and you've got it.
	But, yes, I'll talk to them if I have to.
	Yeah, I mean, obviously, the Washington Post, for example, is going to want an interview.
	By the way, the interesting thing is this part.
	The Post has been really quite good for a major uh... conventional media source they have reported some of the some of the scariest stuff around they've been pretty good about this and even the new york times now has begun to focus on this much more but the british press especially the london times they have a sunday report every sunday you can get online and you have to register but for some reason the british press
	has been much better about reporting this stuff.
	What about the Economist?
	The Economist is everywhere in Europe.
	Yes.
	They have not, I have not seen as strong a reporting as the Sunday Times has done out of them.
	But Financial Times has done a pretty good job too.
	There are sources out there.
	It's not that this thing is being buried in a corner.
	It's just that it's not on the front pages.
	It sure ought to be.
	All right, first time caller on the line.
	You're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Where are you, dear?
	Sparta, Tennessee.
	Sparta, Tennessee.
	All right.
	You're going to have to yell at us.
	You're not too loud.
	Okay, I'm sorry.
	I'm very nervous.
	Can I make a quick comment before my question?
	Sure.
	Gathering everything that you just said about Red China and on the total chaos that we are definitely facing in the near future, I feel like I just read the Book of Revelation just listening to him talk.
	I know.
	And it's scary.
	It's really scary, it's really frightening.
	And on with my question, I know you have other callers.
	Concerning Bill Gates, if he is the richest man in the world and owns Microsoft, with his company and the computer technology that they do have, why in the world is he not footing at least some of the bill for this?
	Because definitely he would come out and only gain from this opportunity.
	Alright, well that's a pretty good question.
	Bill Gates and Microsoft, what's he doing, do you know?
	Well, what they've been doing in the last year is denying their previous year's assertion that they're year 2000 compliant.
	About the last two months, their website has finally admitted that some of their programs are going to have problems.
	But remember, Gates has made his money in microcomputer architecture.
	Right.
	Our problem is embedded chips.
	And the old dinosaurs, as one guy put it, it's the old mainframes.
	Completely different technology, completely different systems.
	You know, it's really interesting because I remember a 16-minute piece a year or two ago about how our government has nothing but these old dinosaur mainframe computers in just about every agency, including the IRS.
	And they were talking about how far behind Government agencies in general are, computer-wise, and I wonder why?
	They wouldn't spend the money.
	It's real simple.
	And the data.
	Remember, if you've got mountains upon mountains of data, if it were printed out, you have to restructure your data to bring it into compliance and move it into a new architecture.
	Nobody would pay for it.
	They're still not paying for it.
	So, it's like the guy said with respect to private industry, if you make too much noise, you got fired.
	Right.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	This is Bernada in Robinsonville, Mississippi.
	Welcome.
	Hello.
	Art, first I'd like to say I enjoy your shows tremendously.
	Thank you.
	And I've listened for over three years.
	I own a piece of property in Michigan where I plan to retire in a small town of about 150.
	I have, it has its own well and septic system and everything.
	They don't have the public one.
	I don't know about wells, but my first question is, don't they need electricity to start them?
	And are we going to have that?
	Or will we need compressors or build our own, the kind of electricity that people had when they, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I know some people that used to have their own, produce their own electricity.
	If I'm making any sense?
	No, you're making eminently good sense.
	It depends on the depth of the well.
	Some wells that are less than 100 feet can be pumped by hand pump, but that's not the way we'd like to do it.
	Sure, if you could have a small generator Or solar power, something of that nature.
	I think that would be a good investment to do.
	That sounds like a very good property, and I would keep that property.
	I would strongly recommend that you begin to get up into that area, make your friends, get rolling.
	This is not so easy to do as I have found.
	It's expensive.
	It's difficult.
	The transition is tough.
	You're in a position to do it.
	I would recommend you do it.
	My family is there and everything.
	You have a tremendous advantage over most.
	Two other quick questions.
	Bill Clinton has wanted to put a computer in every school for every student in all the schools.
	We have all these home computers also.
	What about that?
	The problem is not so much in home computers, is the answer.
	The problem is in mainframes and, as Gary said, embedded chips in these big computers.
	Those old ones.
	Okay, and the last question.
	What about our 401Ks and IRAs and things like that?
	We won't have access to them.
	That's how it seems to me.
	I call them electronic promises to pay.
	They're as good as the electrical system.
	They're as good as the banking system.
	They're electronic promises to pay.
	If you trust them, Go ahead.
	In the long run, and I say long run is 18 months, maybe less, I don't trust electronic promises to pay.
	All right.
	Because they're electronic.
	Precisely.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi again, Art.
	Where are you, sir?
	Marty from Oakland, New Jersey.
	Hello.
	Just one quick comment.
	I know a lot of people are going to think I'm crazy for saying this, but I also know a lot of people out there are going to agree with me.
	I do not own a computer, Art.
	I will never own a computer.
	I despise the damn things.
	And I gotta tell you in all honesty, I am almost glad that this crisis is happening.
	Because the number one function of computers has been to throw people out of work.
	And I can tell you as an absolute fact that for many, many years, these computer salesmen went to all of these different corporations and companies trying to sell them their computer system.
	And the number one selling point has always been, look at all the people you'll be able to get rid of.
	Marty has an interesting point in that when all of this comes down, Gary, Isn't there going to be kind of a witch hunt?
	In other words, aren't there going to be some real evil, bad people out there?
	And don't we face the possibility of almost Old West justice?
	In other words, the people who have been into computers, the people who have caused this problem, everybody's going to want to blame somebody.
	The amassing of blame is going to be a full-time industry if you don't have a complete breakdown.
	As I said, the lawyers are going to be at the front of the line.
	The basic point, in a sense, is correct.
	That's why I call it the Alzheimer's economy.
	We have substituted the machines for the knowledge and skills that generations of managers and workers had.
	They were very efficient, these machines, for a while.
	But the knowledge now has been lost.
	And it's in retirement.
	And the systems that made that knowledge valuable, paper-based management systems, have all been scrapped.
	And now we're left with systems that we really don't understand that have been programmed badly.
	And it's the collapse of information that is the central fact.
	That's the central fact.
	It is the loss of knowledge If you try to look ahead, you obviously see what's coming.
	and the guys right you can't get it back overnight
	and it is a problem these people have been fired the knowledge that they had
	was dismissed and now how do you get it back and integrated
	that is the central problem facing us if you if you try to
	look ahead uh... you obviously see what's coming is there going to be a day when the economy will rise again
	like the phoenix from the ashes and if so
	how do you prepare for that Do you get everything on paper?
	If you have money in the bank, if you have money invested in CDs or IRAs or whatever it is you've got it in, do you make sure that you've got a good paper trail so that when everything does come back someday, you'll be able to... That's the Clark Kent version.
	My position is all electronic promises to pay will be defaulted on, or at least that risk exists.
	I don't like that risk.
	So my position is more the David Hall coins approach, which is, I would rather have an asset or the object that I was going to buy, why don't I buy it now?
	I'd rather have the object than the promise.
	Because I don't trust the promise.
	So I'd rather have the object.
	All right.
	Makes sense.
	Well, to the Rockies, you are on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	This is John from Seattle.
	Hello, John.
	Listening to you on Como 1000.
	Of course.
	First of all, I'd like to say it was a great pleasure to meet you.
	I was on the Great Debate of 98 Cruise.
	Oh, wasn't that something?
	Oh, that was a really good time.
	Met a lot of nice people.
	By the way, I've collected a list of email addresses and have opened up a chat room.
	I sent you an email on it, so maybe you could join us sometime.
	Perhaps so.
	For your guest, with concern of the Y2K problem, every time I've heard that I've just said to myself, bull.
	I just can't believe that it's such a big problem.
	And the reason I say that is I don't see why they couldn't just go out and buy new systems, new Pentium II servers, and like with the electrical companies, simply run the grid on the new systems and then take the old ones offline.
	Alright, that's a question unto itself.
	So why can't they go buy new Pentium IIs to replace these old mainframes?
	And just switch it over.
	First, radically different architectures.
	Secondly, how do you convert the old data, the old knowledge, into off-the-shelf software?
	You don't go down to Kmart and buy the equivalent of the United States military defense system in a package.
	That's true.
	You've got to write the software.
	They haven't written the software because the software is written in arcane languages.
	And all of the information embedded in the software will be lost unless they can port it, and they can't port it over to new systems.
	There's not time.
	It's the information that's the key.
	It's the loss of information.
	Well, that may be true with some of the military codes or whatever, but like with the power system, I don't see why they couldn't just run it with a new system.
	You don't need old knowledge for that.
	The simplest answer is there are 7,800 companies in the United States who make money doing it.
	Not one has done it.
	Not one.
	The answer is they can't do it.
	But even if you don't like that answer, they sure haven't done it, and they've known the problem exists.
	Mm-hmm.
	Companies are paying right now to the Electric Power Research Institute $75,000 per year just to exchange information on how to fix it.
	If it were easy to fix, they wouldn't pay it.
	Well, one thing I was thinking is, you know, you were saying earlier that you couldn't get access to the old data.
	I was thinking, worst case, you could print it out on paper and then scan it into the new systems, and they have software that will take text off of a scanned page and put it into computer format.
	It doesn't solve the embedded chip problem.
	Right.
	I've got 1,650 documents on my website, of which about 1,600 are negative.
	I publish the positive if I find them.
	I suggest you spend a couple of hours looking through that on those questions and just see what you conclude afterwards.
	Oh, plenty of people are going to be doing that, I imagine.
	I hope it doesn't jam up my system.
	My system will probably go down.
	You've got too many people.
	Well, so far, so good.
	It looks like you're up.
	You must be on a backbone part of the Internet somewhere.
	We'll hope so.
	Okay.
	You can find, by the way, everybody, if you have a computer, you can find Gary North's website either by going to my website and simply scrolling down to Gary North's name and clicking on it, or going to his website directly, which will save my side a little bit.
	And Gary's website is www.garynorth.com.
	That's it.
	Just like the direction.
	GaryNorth.com.
	Good and simple.
	Almost out of time.
	First time caller on the line.
	You're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hello, Alex.
	This is Grant.
	I'm a specialist in the year 2000 issue, and I've worked for a major computer corporation for about two and a half years now.
	Okay.
	And I've gotten many letters and many emails about this particular issue.
	And, you know, one thing that really crosses my mind is if the average home user can have a normal solution to this particular problem, Why can't the government come up with something as easily, you know... Well, if you're really a Y2K expert, then you ought to know the answer to that.
	It's simple.
	It's simple, Art.
	You've got either a BIOS upgrade or a motherboard upgrade.
	It's very, very simple.
	Even though they use POSIX, which is an operating system that's, you know, derivative of Unix, you can still go with hardware upgrades.
	And it's not that hard.
	It's impossible, sir.
	It is not impossible.
	And if it were not impossible, they would have done it.
	It cannot be done in the time remaining.
	Okay, are we talking about a government conspiracy here, too?
	Yes!
	I'm talking about the banks, the governments, the power industry.
	If it could be done, it would have been done.
	Oh, well, um, you know, maybe in the next few months or weeks, they might come up with a solution, unless it's a government conspiracy.
	I mean, it's not a very difficult solution to the issue.
	Sir, it is an impossible solution.
	What company do you work for?
	I want to know what company you work for.
	I work for Gateway.
	What is the name of the company?
	I've worked for Gateway for approximately two and a half years.
	That is not a mainframe company.
	You're working in micros.
	It doesn't matter.
	The architecture is similar.
	No, no, even I know there is a complete difference between Gateway personal computers, IBM clones, Macs, whatever, and mainframe computers.
	Come on, even I know that.
	But mainframe architecture is not completely different.
	It's utterly different.
	It is not completely different.
	Well, son, I'll say this, and I'm an elderly, declining dinosaur, I'll say this.
	If you can solve it, it's worth a trillion dollars.
	Get humping, boy.
	You have hit pay dirt.
	Don't fool around with a salary.
	Go solve it.
	You have hit the mother load.
	Don't talk to me on the phone.
	Go make the billion trillion dollars, because that's what it's worth.
	All right.
	We might have time for one more, maybe.
	If it's fast, wild card line, you're on the air with Gary North.
	Hi.
	Hi, Gary.
	I just want to back you up on what you're saying.
	A few years ago, when gold was at the bottom, God told me to buy gold.
	And he said hard assets.
	Well, God was right.
	Yeah.
	And just recently he told me there's going to be a bank failure.
	And I've heard people talk about a run on the banks when they realize this 2000 millennium problem.
	But wouldn't there be a run on gold, too?
	I mean, shouldn't people start getting their gold?
	And I think my son had a dream the same night that he was having to bite off gold bars to buy a yogurt.
	So I'm thinking not collectible coins, but actually gold bars with certificates.
	All right.
	Ma'am, we've got to hold it there.
	And Gary, we've really got to hold it there.
	We're utterly out of time.
	We went the whole way.
	I really appreciate it, Gary.
	We'll keep the link up on our website to yours.
	I hope yours holds up.
	We'll get to you for monthly reports.
	How about that?
	That's good.
	And if anybody, one more time, if you really want a quick summary, it's just at collapse at trap.com.
	You can get the report.
	Good night, Gary.
	Thanks, I appreciate it.
	Thank you, my friend.
	Good night.
	There you have it, the definitive program on Y2K.

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