Y2K Repair Bill: $100 Billion; Commerce Estimate Lower Than Others
U.S. businesses and government agencies are being forced to spend about $100 billion to keep the year 2000 glitch from crashing their computers, making a simple two-digit programming "bug" the most expensive peacetime catastrophe in modern history.</br></br>But the vast electronic repair effort, which has commanded an unparalleled mobilization of people, money and executive attention in the past two years, is not likely to slow down the surging American economy, the Commerce Department predicted yesterday.</br></br>Comparing Y2K to "a tangled shoelace for a world-class marathon runner," the department also forecast that any problems created by malfunctioning computers--either domestically or overseas--will have an insignificant impact on the U.S. economy.</br></br>"Any glitches that pop up next year should not hurt our economic growth," said Commerce Secretary William Daley, who noted that the Y2K price tag works out to $365 for every American citizen.</br></br>"Is this a lot of money? Absolutely," Daley said. "But the potential cost of not doing anything was far greater."