A MATTER OF DEADLINES, by Gary North

Do you want to know the secret of success? Here it is: Do what you say you will do. Anything else? Spend less than you earn. Tithe to your local church. Do these things, and you will be a success.

This is the price we must pay for success. It is a price that very few people are willing or psychologically able to pay. It seems beyond their abilities. This is why success is really not that difficult to achieve.

Christians ought to be successful. God is on their side. They know the rules. The Bible tells them. But Christians are not noted for their success. What is their problem? Failure to tithe is one. But there is another: sloppy work. The Christian looks at his obligations and thinks, "Jesus is merciful. He really doesn’t expect me to do all that I’m required to do." Then, in a flash of theological legerdemain, "Jesus" becomes "my employer." The Christian thinks: "Jesus is my boss, and He is full of mercy. My earthly boss should be like Jesus. So, I really don’t have to get this project done on time. I can cut a few corners."

There are three rules associated with the law of doing what you say you will do:

If Christians consistently obeyed these rules, they would be a dominant force in the world.

Deadlines are important. In the history of man, no society has become so utterly dependent on deadlines as ours. Call the deadlines into question, and you call the West into question.

An entire civilization now hinges on the ability of mainframe computer programmers to follow these three rules. They ignore all three. "I love deadlines," said one programmer. "I love the sound of whooshing they make as they go by." Something between 85% and 90% of all large programming projects come in late or are never completed. Rarely are they completed under budget. This has been true from the beginning of the profession. This is a well-known fact among programmers, but it is not a well-known fact among managers who employ them. Managers think that each unmet deadline is an anomaly.

Managers today announce the same deadline for their organizations’ Year 2000 repair completion: December, 1998, with six months left for testing. It will not happen. Hardly any large organizations are at the code-repair stage, and of these, hardly any have the spare mainframe computer capacity to run the tests in 1999. The only way that such spare capacity will exist is if very few organizations meet the deadline in December of 1998. Then they can rent extra capacity. This, I expect.

Lawyers tell managers that the projects must be finished in December, 1998, if a company is to avoid litigation in 2000, should the project not be completed. Managers ask senior computer information technology officers if they can be ready by late 1998. Knowing that their jobs are on the line, the computer team managers assure management that they can meet the deadline. But they will not meet the deadline. They never have. Why start now? What will management do about it? Fire the whole staff? Not very likely, unless the banks go down. That means that it is very likely, which means that the projects will never be completed.

If the banks get hit with runs in 1999, Year 2000 projects will not be brought to completion. This is the terrible threat of fractional reserve banking. Everyone’s timetable assumes six months in 1999 to work the bugs out of the repairs. This time may not be available. If employers cannot pay programmers, programmers will quit. Then what? Shutdown in 2000.

When a person says that he will complete a job by a specific time, the person who hires him becomes dependent on him. He schedules his operations on the assumption that this person will deliver the goods. The production system depends on this. Consider an automobile manufacturer such as General Motors. It may have as many as 15,000 suppliers. What if one of them cannot deliver the goods? Whole production lines will have to be shut down. "For want of a nail. . . ."

This is the problem facing the world’s economy today. We have adopted just-in-time manufacturing. We have adopted just-in-time shipping. Computers fit it all into a smooth production line, with jet planes delivering crucial components. All of it depends on the coordination of events. Destroy this coordination, and the system breaks down.

Many things could destroy it: bankrupt suppliers, bankrupt banks, a breakdown of airport computers, paralyzed railroads, gasoline shortages. We assume that everyone will keep his word and meet his deadline. Modern civilization depends on the fulfillment of these contracts. Destroy the predictability of contracts, and you destroy the modern division of labor.

We trust millions of people. We cannot measure their number. Their efforts are coordinated by the free market. The free market is based on contracts. Managers who have signed these contracts have delegated the task of running the delivery system to programmers who operate mainframe computers. The programmers have in turn delegated the task to programs designed a generation ago. Everything is built on trust. This trust is about to be broken, all over the world, all at once.

Why do I keep saying that the y2k threat is civilization-wide? Because fractional reserve banking is civilization-wide. So is the telecommunications system. But the banks are the key. If they go down, the payments system goes down. Contracts go down.

In 1932, the division of labor was far lower. Close to half the U.S. population lived on farms. Not everyone had money in a bank. The large money center banks did not go under. The Federal Reserve System bailed them out. Yet the banking crisis created unemployment in the United States of 25%.

Serious estimates today forecast that 30% of all U.S. businesses will go bankrupt in 2000. If the banks fail, this figure will be much higher. Who will bail out the banks in 2000? How?

The possibility of a collapse in the division of labor is not taken seriously by anyone in authority. I keep harping on the topic, but nobody else does. So, am I crazy? The answer will depend heavily on the condition of the banks in 2000. If bank runs take them down, or if all we can get out of them is cash, the collapse of the division of labor is sure. We cannot pay most of our bills with cash. We dare not send cash out of the region we live in. Would you trust mailing $500 in cash to some distant person or business? No. Neither would your employer. Neither would all the people who buy from your employer. World commerce will cease if the banks close. If they are not compliant in 2000, the free market will close them. No money center bank in the world is compliant today. This is ominous, or should be. But nobody pays any attention. When they do, the runs will begin.

What happens if 30% of all suppliers go out of business? That means that 30% of buyers will go out of business: suppliers for one firm are buyers from another. The chain of payments breaks down. What will businesses do in self-defense? Cut costs. You are a cost. Will you get cut? How large a pay cut will you accept to avoid getting cut? Then what about paying your monthly mortgage? Down will go the dominoes.

Local congregations are assemblies of like-minded people. Usually, they are people with similar incomes. The local church is a face-to-face society.

Trust will be crucial for developing economic relationships in a world in which the familiar sources of production are paralyzed. This is why I see the local church as one of the two major centers for economic reconstruction, along with the service clubs. People know each other. They trust each other to deliver the goods on time at the price agreed on.

Christians will have to learn under pressure that mercy is in short supply in business relationships. The casual, "Jesus doesn’t mind" attitude of so many Christians will prove to be dangerous for those who rely on them. But if Christians can at last figure out what it means to meet a deadline at the price agreed on, no matter what, they will be in a position to recapture leadership in their community.

Will they be ready? Not at first. But fear is a wonderful motivator. All the blather about love – read: "forgive me; I’m late again" – will end. Those who want to become successful, to exercise leadership, will have to meet their deadlines. Those who do will become low-risk suppliers of goods and services. They will be the people whom others seek out.

Leadership will return to churches that rediscover the importance of God’s law. Men who can be relied on to meet their contracts will gain respect and income. Churches will become centers of charity but also centers of productivity. This will be a new experience for churches.

The world recognizes that Christians are second-class citizens and third-class businessmen. The world believes in contracts, not mercy. Christians are big on mercy – shown to them – because they are not willing to submit to deadlines and standards. They see such restraints as a form of legalism.

The result is that the world does not seek out Christians to buy from. The risk is too high. I used to work for a non-profit organization that had a rule: never ship books on credit to any organization with Christian in the title. The odds were higher that they would not pay than for other groups. "Jesus forgives us. He understands."

The result is doormat status. People do not look to Christ’s representatives for leadership. This includes other Christians.

There can be legitimate excuses for failure to meet a deadline. Man’s world is not perfect. We are not perfect. But these excuses had better be good ones – as good as they are rarely invoked.

The church should be filled today with the best workers in society. It should be filled with people whose dedication to their jobs is unparalleled. This is not the case. Christians are not taught how important good work is, how important as a testimony. "Good enough" soon becomes, "Be merciful to me, a sinner." The employer hears, "Cut me some more slack again; I’m a flake for Jesus."

The programmers have called the deadline into question – not publicly, just practically. "We’ll meet your deadline. You bet your life we can do it." Yes, you do.

The post-2000 world will be unrecognizable if the banks go down. Men will not trust computers to deliver their goods. They will trust people.

One phrase will become the world’s excuse for failure to deliver the goods: "Our computer is down." That phrase will be universal. It will become the most hated phrase on earth. The frustration level of the typical consumer is already minimal. Wait until he hears that phrase for the tenth time. An explosion of frustration, all over the West, will hit the poor men and women who stand behind their dead computers, facing a long line of enraged and desperate people. "Our computer is down" will call into question every contract, every supply line, that keeps us fat and soft.

It is time to get ready for a change. The change will involve a new kind of dependence. It will not be dependence on computers. It will be dependence on people’s word.

Copyright 1997, Institute for Christian Economics

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