IP: Bennett unveils pension-fund Y2K bill; Hatch on Microsoft

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/more/1,1311,1965,00.html?pg=2&continue=0


time.com / The Netly News
May 6, 1998


         *  *  *
                           
       It didn't take Bob Bennett very long. Just days after his new job
   as head of a Senate Year 2000 Committee became official, the
   Republican senator from Utah has proposed a law that he hopes will
   head off some of the most pernicious effects of the Millennium Bug.
   Bennett wants to require pension fund managers to consider Y2K
   problems when deciding where to invest money. "For those entrusted
   with the responsibility to protect these assets, it is vital that they
   consider the impact of the millennial date change," he said in a
   statement yesterday afternoon. (Why people who are capable of reading
   the increasingly shrill press coverage and reaching their own
   conclusions need Uncle Sam's guidance was left unsaid.) The bill also
   lets federal bureaucrats reshuffle budgets and boost the pay of
   programmers who might be eying greener pastures in the private sector.
   
         *  *  *
   
       Utah Senator Orrin Hatch didn't wait for it to actually happen
   before he slagged Microsoft's pep rally in New York yesterday. The
   ornery Republican, whose home state includes Microsoft arch-competitor
   Novell, took to the Senate floor yesterday to suggest the industry
   veeps who were backing Gates were in fact being coerced by Big Bill.


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