Donald Trump

[Jack Knave]

I think it is pretty well impossible to be a credible candidate for the president without being in some way part of the elite - effectively because of the cost of a presidential run - you either need to be massively personally wealthy, or already well enough embedded in the 'system' to be able to attract major funding.

So who, in your opinion, isn't part of the elite and would be a credible president. Certainly all of the remaining contenders are, being either exceptionally rich (Trump) or with a longstanding background in the political establishment as governor or senator.

I'm not sure Sanders is part of the elite, is he?

[Jack Knave]

No, really it is not.
You can only pick the best of what is on offer.

That's not democracy that's a load 'dice'. The money needs to be removed or at least restricted. It would seem to me that democracy doesn't work for very large numbers, one reason being that the sheer cost and effort needed to reach so many people is only afforded to those with the means. Small is beautiful.

[ProfessorDavey]

I'm not sure Sanders is part of the elite, is he?

He is part of the establishment - don't forget he has been in either the senate or house of representatives for over a quarter of a century.

[Jack Knave]

He is part of the establishment - don't forget he has been in either the senate or house of representatives for over a quarter of a century.

But he has raised much of his money for his campaign from the grassroots...

[ProfessorDavey]

But he has raised much of his money for his campaign from the grassroots...

As I said you either need to need to be massively personally wealthy, or already well enough embedded in the 'system' to be able to attract major funding. Sanders is the latter.

[Brownie]

Can't see anything wrong with that.

[ProfessorDavey]

Can't see anything wrong with that.

Sorry Brownie - whose post are you responding to?

[jeremyp]

I think Bill Clinton was fortunate to have been president though a period (Jan 1993-Jan 2001) which was relatively benign in both an economic sense and also in terms of major security threats.

Sure you can claim that this was in part down to him, and I don't doubt he was a sure hand on the tiller, but sometimes these things are about luck rather than judgement.

My impression is the Obama has largely been a passenger on the rollercoaster of US government. His most notable achievement is to implement an old Republican idea on healthcare as far as I can see. Many Americans who supported him at his first election see him as a disappointment.

It seems remarkable than toward the end of his presidency the thing that appeared to be the biggest threat was the millennium bug that was apparently going to screw up all our computers. Seems rather quaint now.

The Millennium bug was a real threat. As somebody who had a small part in averting it, I thoroughly resent the modern received wisdom that it was all a lot of fuss over nothing.

[Sebastian Toe]

The Millennium bug was a real threat. As somebody who had a small part in averting it, I thoroughly resent the modern received wisdom that it was all a lot of fuss over nothing.

Ditto.
I did a lot of overtime working on that. A lot. An awful lot.

Did I mention that I did a ............?


..on the plus side it was good for the bank balance but only after I had recovered from doing a lot of..........!

[ProfessorDavey]

The Millennium bug was a real threat. As somebody who had a small part in averting it, I thoroughly resent the modern received wisdom that it was all a lot of fuss over nothing.

JP and SebT.

Just because you spent a lot of time and effort on trying to avert the risk doesn't mean there was a significant problem.

Across the globe there were millions of private individuals and businesses who did absolutely nothing in the run up to 2000, and guess what their systems worked fine afterwards.

I gather there is no correlation between the investment in fixing the supposed problems by countries and the prevalence of post Jan 1st 2000 problems. Likewise comparing organisations (or individuals) that had achieved compliance, and those that hadn't.

I'm not disputing that there was a risk but in retrospect it is pretty clear that the risk was massively overstated and the investment in trying to 'fix' it was probably not really necessary.

[ProfessorDavey]

My impression is the Obama has largely been a passenger on the rollercoaster of US government. His most notable achievement is to implement an old Republican idea on healthcare as far as I can see. Many Americans who supported him at his first election see him as a disappointment.

I think he has also been successful in achieving a strong economic recovery from the global recession - something that the UK should look at more.

Rather than going for the Osborne austerity approach, Obama recognised the importance in investing your way back to growth and ultimately deficit reduction. Now in Osborne's warped economic outlook that investment should result in greater borrowing, but it doesn't if it drives growth.

So at the peak of the recession the UK and US deficits as a proportion of GDP were pretty similar - actually the US (12.1% of GDP) was a little worse than the UK (11.4%), but Obama has been able to bring that down dramatically, so for the last 2 years it is hovering around just 2.5%. The UK's deficit remains about twice that.

[Sebastian Toe]

JP and SebT.

Just because you spent a lot of time and effort on trying to avert the risk doesn't mean there was a significant problem.

Across the globe there were millions of private individuals and businesses who did absolutely nothing in the run up to 2000, and guess what their systems worked fine afterwards.

I gather there is no correlation between the investment in fixing the supposed problems by countries and the prevalence of post Jan 1st 2000 problems. Likewise comparing organisations (or individuals) that had achieved compliance, and those that hadn't.

I'm not disputing that there was a risk but in retrospect it is pretty clear that the risk was massively overstated and the investment in trying to 'fix' it was probably not really necessary.

Well I did all of my work for a large financial institution and the risk assessment was that if they did nothing and then lost money or customers or reputation because of not fixing the bug, then that was worth any investment and the effort taken.
As it turned out there were issues in some of the code, not a lot but some.
The problem (ie that which caused the huge effort) was because there was so much code to wade through a lot of it undocumented (bad!) some of it had to be re-engineered.
And tested!
Tested to death
- and then tested again, that took up most of the effort!

I wasn't complaining because I left my full time job prior in order to become a freelancer to make more money solely for that.
It worked for me!

[ProfessorDavey]

Well I did all of my work for a large financial institution and the risk assessment was that if they did nothing and then lost money or customers or reputation because of not fixing the bug, then that was worth any investment and the effort taken.
As it turned out there were issues in some of the code, not a lot but some.
The problem (ie that which caused the huge effort) was because there was so much code to wade through a lot of it undocumented (bad!) some of it had to be re-engineered.
And tested!
Tested to death
- and then tested again, that took up most of the effort!

I wasn't complaining because I left my full time job prior in order to become a freelancer to make more money solely for that.
It worked for me!

Which I think isn't inconsistent with what I was saying.

I understand that some big organisations felt they needed to be sure there wasn't going to be a problem, rather than hope there wouldn't be one. But from what you are saying there might have been a few problems but not many. And that seems to be a general theme - and is backed up by the evidence that there weren't complete meltdowns in systems (whether personal, business or public sector) where little or no preventative action was taken so they weren't Y2K compliant.

If there were major problems then those sectors which were non compliant would have gone into meltdown while those that put in the investment and work would have been laughing, going 'told you so' and thinking the money well invested. But that wasn't the case - the non compliant areas carried on without major problems too, which suggests while there may have been a theoretical risk in fact it wasn't realised.

But of course plenty of IT specialists were kept in a lot of work during that period.

[Sebastian Toe]

Which I think isn't inconsistent with what I was saying.

I understand that some big organisations felt they needed to be sure there wasn't going to be a problem, rather than hope there wouldn't be one. But from what you are saying there might have been a few problems but not many. And that seems to be a general theme - and is backed up by the evidence that there weren't complete meltdowns in systems (whether personal, business or public sector) where little or no preventative action was taken so they weren't Y2K compliant.

If there were major problems then those sectors which were non compliant would have gone into meltdown while those that put in the investment and work would have been laughing, going 'told you so' and thinking the money well invested. But that wasn't the case - the non compliant areas carried on without major problems too, which suggests while there may have been a theoretical risk in fact it wasn't realised.

But of course plenty of IT specialists were kept in a lot of work during that period.

Agreed.

It helped, a lot, if you could forward test dates in the future.
That saved a lot effort.
However if you couldn't then new testing harnesses had to be built, then even more effort!

However as a result of all of that, we had a super duper test process and a well documented set of systems which in the long run probably resulted in long term saving which recouped a  hell of a lot of the initial outlay!

[ProfessorDavey]

Agreed.

It helped, a lot, if you could forward test dates in the future.
That saved a lot effort.
However if you couldn't then new testing harnesses had to be built, then even more effort!

However as a result of all of that, we had a super duper test process and a well documented set of systems which in the long run probably resulted in long term saving which recouped a  hell of a lot of the initial outlay!

But the world wouldn't have fallen apart, the sky caved in and everything wouldn't have ground to a halt had all this work not been done - albeit there may have needed to be some remedial action taken post Jan 1st 2002 to rectify isolated issues.

Back to the point I was making - at the time (toward the end of the Clinton administration) this seemed to be the biggest issue we were facing. And if that was the case (and actually it wasn't really a big issue) then we were in pretty benign times.

[Sebastian Toe]

But the world wouldn't have fallen apart, the sky caved in and everything wouldn't have ground to a halt had all this work not been done - albeit there may have needed to be some remedial action taken post Jan 1st 2002 to rectify isolated issues.

I am actually agreeing with you, just pointing out that some good did come from the process.

[ProfessorDavey]

I am actually agreeing with you, just pointing out that some good did come from the process.

I understand - you are right that some good did come out of the process - many evidenced in the bank balances of IT specialists

[Sebastian Toe]

I understand - you are right that some good did come out of the process - many evidenced in the bank balances of IT specialists

I give you.......

https://images.rapgenius.com/08e29e1f80c4a923891222fa937e9307.450x429x1.jpg

See that, that was me that was. 

[ProfessorDavey]

I give you.......

https://images.rapgenius.com/08e29e1f80c4a923891222fa937e9307.450x429x1.jpg

See that, that was me that was. 

Has your career headed downhill ever since, rather like Mr Enfield

[jeremyp]

JP and SebT.

Just because you spent a lot of time and effort on trying to avert the risk doesn't mean there was a significant problem.

No. The audits we and others did show that in some cases there was.

Across the globe there were millions of private individuals and businesses who did absolutely nothing in the run up to 2000, and guess what their systems worked fine afterwards.

Here's a fact: without the efforts of me and my colleagues, it would have been impossible to get a UK passport in January 2000. Just because some systems were unaffected doesn't mean that no systems were unaffected or that the effects would not have been dramatic had they not been fixed.

I'm not disputing that there was a risk but in retrospect it is pretty clear that the risk was massively overstated and the investment in trying to 'fix' it was probably not really necessary.

This is utterly false.

[ProfessorDavey]

Here's a fact: without the efforts of me and my colleagues, it would have been impossible to get a UK passport in January 2000. Just because some systems were unaffected doesn't mean that no systems were unaffected or that the effects would not have been dramatic had they not been fixed.

I never said that no systems were unaffected, but that the levels of problems were massively overhyped. Don't forget that thousands of computer systems were not checked and 'fixed' and remained non Y2K compliant and guess what, they didn't stop working on Jan 1st as had been claimed, they sailed happily through the millennium working exactly as they had on 31st Dec 1999.

And of course the question to ask (and is being asked) is whether it was sensible to spend a fortune 'fixing' computers that weren't broken (i.e. they'd have carried on working absolutely fine on 1st Jan 2000 regardless) or to take retrospective action in the few places where problems occurred.

Of course there would be certain 'critical' systems that you'd really have to take prospective action, but probably not that many. For all the rest wouldn't it have been better to see whether there was an issue (and in most cases there wouldn't have been) and then fix those actual issues.

I gather that some countries (e.g. Italy and South Korea) really didn't put any effort into fixing the issues in advance, yet I don't remember their infrastructures crashing down in Jan 2000. Actually I think it is the case that their levels of issues were no greater than places that had spent millions of fixes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01dutton.html?_r=1

[ProfessorDavey]

This is utterly false.

Really - then why is there no relationship between the amount of time and effort trying to fix the problems and the manifestation of problems post 1st Jan 2000.

[Udayana]

No. The audits we and others did show that in some cases there was.
Here's a fact: without the efforts of me and my colleagues, it would have been impossible to get a UK passport in January 2000. Just because some systems were unaffected doesn't mean that no systems were unaffected or that the effects would not have been dramatic had they not been fixed.
This is utterly false.

But we wouldn't have needed passports as the flight booking systems would not have been working.

Not that we would have been booking flights, as most of us would not have been paid that month - so actually would not have needed the ATM systems either!

[ProfessorDavey]

But we wouldn't have needed passports as the flight booking systems would not have been working.

Not that we would have been booking flights, as most of us would not have been paid that month - so actually would not have needed the ATM systems either!

I don't remember any news items about South Koreans not being paid, being unable to book flights or get passports. Or maybe we didn't hear because all their media outlets went kaput too

[Udayana]

Most of the software used to book flights, run payroll etc is run and maintained by companies who are contractually obliged to test and fix those systems. Similarly most banks use the same software to run their ATMs - updated well before time. Some smaller US banks found their ATMs failed in the days after 1st Jan.

Not sure about government built systems - but the chances are that the Korean passport system was an off-the shelf system based on one built for Japan - and maintained by the supplier.

Agree that all the end-of-the-world stuff was ridiculous but the required work was done and the fixes distributed in good time.