May I recommend some non-journalist places for some of you newbies to go and gather data (numbers, percentages, etc)

www.gao.gov (go to reports and testimonies, then to year 2000)

www.sec.gov (go to search Edgar archives, click on quick form, pick 10q, type in your favorite company, do an edit search for year 2000 and read)

www.yardeni.com (go to year 2000 link, he had tabulated the S&P 500 data for you to save you time) check y2k money budgeted vs. y2k money spent

www.y2ktoday.com go to the link reporting the Head of the U.S. Senate Year 2000 Committee Sen. Robert Bennett latest article, A real alarm ringer from someone who has access to data we don't

These are just a few places to form your own conclusions. Take the time to go through some of those GAO documents, their serious.

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), February 02, 1999

Answers

They're extremely serious.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 03, 1999.

James, great post and GOOD advice.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), February 03, 1999.

What have you guys been doing? These were the first sites I explored when trying to find out about Y2K. You kept doing research and didn't even know how to research. I guess that figures.

Troll Maria

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), February 03, 1999.

Maria, Oh magnificent one, this post was for "newbies".

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), February 03, 1999.

At the risk of more flames, I should point out that these sources don't eliminate spin, they remove one spin layer. This is all to the good, but there are some things to bear in mind:

1) GAO is to Congress what OMB is to the administration. When the two are controlled by different parties, GAO is very critical of whatever the administration does. When the same party controls both, OMB and GAO are in happy agreement. This is not coincidence.

2) The 10Q reports are very carefully written by lawyers, and creative use is made of statistics, omissions, boilerplate, we've been through this. A good source, but not spin-free by any means.

3) Yardeni is the only major economist (of many) who foresees any substantial y2k effects. His budget figures are surely accurate. I've argued extensively (most recently in the programmer shortage thread) that there is a lot more to these figures than meets the eye. Directing the reader ONLY to Yardeni (and not to ANY other economist) is itself a form of spin.

4) Senator Bennett is a politician who has hitched his wagon to an issue. Is anyone here going to seriously argue that politicians don't spin issues?

A search for facts is admirable. Narrowing that search solely to sources supporting one side of a complex issue defeats that very purpose. This isn't research, this is argument.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 03, 1999.

Flint, as you are expressing, there is no such person as an unbiased or "spin-free" person, myself and yourself included. I was pointing the readers to some sites where one could sift through the biases and get some numbers, percentages, and dates.

You wrote:

1) GAO is to Congress what OMB is to the administration. When the two are controlled by different parties, GAO is very critical of whatever the administration does. When the same party controls both, OMB and GAO are in happy agreement. This is not coincidence.

(Even if you don't believe the GAO's interpretation of the numbers reported, there are numbers in these reports none the less. Example: reported medicaid/food stamp/WIC percentages from the states. There is data here that you can find no where else.)

2) The 10Q reports are very carefully written by lawyers, and creative use is made of statistics, omissions, boilerplate, we've been through this. A good source, but not spin-free by any means.

(Similar to the GAO sites, there are some (not many), but some useful numbers in these 10q's that tell you more than any prspin by their company y2k spokesperson. Especially the y2k budget/and spent to date. If Boeing reports spending 16% as of 3rd quarter 1998, a little light should go off in the readers ears whether a lawyer wrote it or not)

3) Yardeni is the only major economist (of many) who foresees any substantial y2k effects. His budget figures are surely accurate. I've argued extensively (most recently in the programmer shortage thread) that there is a lot more to these figures than meets the eye. Directing the reader ONLY to Yardeni (and not to ANY other economist) is itself a form of spin.

(I directed them to Yardeni's compilation of the data to save them time going through the 10q's. He lists the numbers of the S&P 500 in nice tabular form so you can interpret for yourself)

4) Senator Bennett is a politician who has hitched his wagon to an issue. Is anyone here going to seriously argue that politicians don't spin issues?

(Senator Bennett was put in charge of y2k in the US Senate. That makes him more than just a politician, but one who has access to, for example, the 10 largest utility companies in the nation on their y2k status)

A search for facts is admirable. Narrowing that search solely to sources supporting one side of a complex issue defeats that very purpose. This isn't research, this is argument.

(These are good sites to get some analitical data, even if these sites also include interpretation of this data. Maybe the sites with the most data tend to be on one side, mostly the negative)

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), February 03, 1999.

A careless oversight I'm sure, but you left off:

Gary North's Links & Forums

Oh, and also:

and, for all-round get-around:

Coolpages 2000

There ... much better.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), February 03, 1999.

If you believe politicans are less prone to spin than reporters, well, I've got a bridge to sell you...

Making your issue sound VITALLY IMPORTANT SO IMPORTANT THAT IF YOU'RE NOT LISTENED TO THE REPUBLIC WILL BE IMPERILED is the mother's milk of politics. Bennett is not doing anything particularly noteworthy in that regard.

Y2K may well be a terribly serious problem. It may turn out to be nothing much. But I wouldn't bet on politicans or lapdog bureaucrats to tell me the truth either way.

-- Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com), February 03, 1999.