On a smaller scale (though not necessarily in value terms), Japanese banks are saddled with legacy systems developed by the big companies where hardware made the money and the software was a freebie.For these closed systems (NEC, Toshiba, etc.) migration to new systems is not only financially prohibitive but the technical complexity of retooling live systems (people still need to withdraw and deposit funds) with new systems is something that have kept Japanese banking industry one of the most archaic, despite the overall Japanese sophistication in technology and automation. I suspect it is technological barrier that seems to come in the way in what otherwise seems to be conceptually an easy switch.
A related question, how is drachma adoption different from major currency devaluation by adding a whose slew of zeros and a new domestic currency? I remember Brazil switching from cruzeiro to cruzado by adding zeros. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Chair & Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies Australia India Institute and School of Social & Political Sciences University of Melbourne, 147-149 Barry Street, Carlton VIC 3053, AUSTRALIA Ph: +61 3 9035 6161, http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/ <https://owa.unimelb.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=KGdpeyp6YEyjUaiENKoAtx8nOn9uStAIlCVtCNE3uLxqkGIwkWdEYjJXILfPlddrM0Q1713syQQ.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.aii.unimelb.edu.au%2f> Podcast: https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-anthony-dcosta-on-the-challenges-facing-indias-economy-43913 ICAS 9 Adelaide: http://www.icas9.com/workshop-SASAA.php *New Book: *After-Development Dynamics (on South Korea) http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198729433.do *Forthcoming Book: **http://www.tandf.net/books/details/9780415564953/ <http://www.tandf.net/books/details/9780415564953/>* *New Book Series (Dynamics of Asian Development)* *http://www.springer.com/series/13342 <http://www.springer.com/series/13342>* xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > On 7/17/15 9:15 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: > > Was it genuinely impossible to arrange a Grexit given complex logistics > > of introducing a drachma? > > I don't know why I keep having to point this out but the conversion to a > drachma is not the issue. ATM machines can be stocked with newly minted > bills within a month. > > Instead the issue is transforming a nation's IT infrastructure to handle > the new currency. It is ACCOUNTING systems, TRADING systems, PURCHASING > systems, etc. that have to be retooled. It took YEARS for the drachma to > euro conversion to be implemented within such systems. What makes you > think that it would not take years to reverse engineer? > > Just one example. Computer systems are almost certainly filled with > logic that is looking for some hard-coded value such as "if order_amount > > 1000, then perform order_limit_rtn". If a new currency makes such > logic inapplicable, then chaos will ensue. > > The basic problem is not in and of itself technical. It is more a > question of business systems analysis, the first stage in a project life > cycle. I had been involved with both the business and the technical side > of such projects for more than 40 years, including a number that crashed > and burned. For example, I spent 3 years designing an account management > system for Goldman-Sachs. Not a year after this system, which was part > of a suite of new IBM mainframe software to replace dated Burroughs > based software, management realized that it was already behind the curve > and began a new major project to adopt Unix-based client server systems. > > Large-scale DP projects are marked by delay. Let me repeat that. Delay > is typical in any major undertaking. When management used to tell us > that they expected something up and running in 2 years, we always > understood that it would take 4 years. > > In my view, the only people who get this are Yves Smith, who managed > large scale DP projects even though her background is primarily on the > business side, and Nathan Tankus whose dad has a background like mine. > In addition, Nathan is very much on top of the "interface" problems > involved with a currency switch. This is very hairy stuff. > _ > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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