The Y2k problem or "bug" is best defined by the United States Security and Exchange commission. "Put simply, many computerized systems are programmed to use a two-digit rather than four-digit number to represent the year. The "19" that proceeds dates in the century was assumed. Systems programmed in this fashion will treat the Year 2000, stored in their system as "00," as the year 1900. As a result, systems or programs that use dates to perform calculations, comparisons, or sorting may generate incorrect results when working with years after 1999. For example, a fi

Upgrading computer systems to account for the Y2K issue in an expensive and time-consuming process. The IRS has been criticized for being on of the last government organizations to begin the path of upgrading their systems to Y2K compliance. It is theorized that many IRS Transactions will be lost when the year 2000 hits. Social Security is another government agency that is late in preparing for Y2K changes. These government organizations set an unfortunate example for the rest of the United States, while they dictate other organizations the importance of upgrading computer systems they have hardly begun to address the issues themselves.

As individuals, as nations, and as a global society we have the choice as to how we will respond to our Y2K problems. Presently the social aspect of Y2K is receiving little or no attention and is considered to be one of the most dangerous problems we face. Futurist Magazine, which is devoted to problems and solutions to futuristic ideas and solutions, writes, "We firmly believe that social reaction is the most important place to focus public attention and individual ingenuity. They go on to say, " Y2K is a technology induced problem, but can no longer be solved by technology alone. It will create societal problems that can only be solved by humans." (Peterson, Wheatley, Rogers).

Several aspects of the Y2K bug could potentially collapse our economy. Core problems such as legacy software, which banks use to keep track of money transactions, use older computer code that will not process information after the year 1999. The confusion of this code will cause their computers to freeze, thus stopping transactions taking place in the banking system. The banking system as a whole is in the middle of an upgrade process right now. Customers worry about their money being safe in a bank as the year 2000 approaches and are planning too withdraw there cash to keep at home until they are convinced that the Y2K problem has passed. "The federal Reserve has ordered an additional $50 billion of new currency to put into circulation for when people make a run on banks and automated teller machines late next year. Federal governors have assured Congress there will be sufficient cash available to the system to cover a wave of withdrawals" (Marcy Gorden).

Internal chips found in banking system computers have instruction sets that will automatically delete information that is more than five years old. These chips are not software upgradeable and have to be replaced manually with new rewritten year 2000 compliant code. In a banking system for example, some customer's accounts or money may disappear due to the computer believing it operates in the year 1900 instead of 2000. "If too many people start withdrawing too much c

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1882
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)