The steady drumbeat of upbeat reports and predictions from industry associations and the government has created a state of near-euphoria as spokesman after spokesman congratulates his company, the industry to which it belongs, and the entire country for its remarkable progress in battling the dreaded Millennium Bug. The most recent optimistic report comes from the President’s Council on Y2K Conversion (www.y2k.gov/new/FIN AL3.htm), which finds good things to say about the progress of almost every one of the 80 industry groups that it has been tracking.
Y2K Reporting: The Honor System

It doesn’t seem to bother anyone on the Y2000 Conversion Council that virtually all of the status reports and progress reports from these industries have been based on self-assessments from only a handful of the companies within the industry. Nor does it seem to bother economists, politicians or business executives that aside from North America and portions of Western Europe, the rest of the world lags far behind in its Y2K activities. There is an implicit faith that the US economy can prosper even if the rest of the global economy falls flat on its face.

Although small businesses and local governments come under some criticism from the Y2K Conversion Council’s report, that too seems overwhelmed by the general euphoria; hey, who needs small businesses and small towns anyway? While we’re at it, we might as well ignore the lack of progress in municipal water authorities, the mixed progress of the nation’s airports and the generally dismal state of Y2K progress in the nation’s hospitals. At least the banks are making excellent progress (or so we’re told), and aside from the potential risk of “localized” disruptions, the utilities are making great progress, too (who cares if the lights go out in Taos, New Mexico, and a few dozen other cities as long as it’s not dark in New York and Washington, right?). Overall, the public-relations message seems to be: There’s lots of good news, and that’s what we should be focusing on; talking about the bad news is not constructive, and runs the risk of shaking public confidence.

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