Most electricity is routed manually. If an overload is detected on a line, the system automatically shuts down. Similar to the breakers and fuses that protect a home from catastrophe, these industrial safety mechanisms don't care what year it is. In the case of electric utility companies, date coding plays only a minor role in the production of electricity, but it is crucial to the metering of usage. This gives the power companies great incentive to solve the problem so that they can collect their money.
Dire predictions concerning the airline and finance industries are also exaggerated.
Large banking institutions and security firms have been moving steadily towards a solution to the problem. Expenditures have been underestimated, though. When it comes to assessing overall costs for Year 2000 conversions, only three percent of companies are on target. The potential effects on the economy are real and serious. One member of Congress considers the problem to be at least as important as teen smoking.