Is Gary North a liar???

[Rassah]

Gary North, supposedly an economic advisor to Ron Paul, and a predictor that the world would collapse due to Y2K, wrote an article claiming that Bitcoin is a Ponzi bubble.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/11/gary-north/is-bitcoin-a-ponzi-scheme/

That claim was thoroughly debunked (or not, depending on whom you asked) by John Mather here

http://libertarianstandard.com/2013/12/01/ponzi-logic-debunking-gary-north/

In response, Gary North wrote two rebuttals. In the first, he claims that he never called bitcoin a fraud, despite that being the implication of calling it a ponzi bubble, AND that bitcoin consists of people making BS to sell it off to the next fool.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11843.cfm

In this one he also continuously makes the mistake of not recognizing that for a currency to get big enough to actually support any level of economic activity, it MUST grow rapidly if it started at $0. The whole argument seems dumb if you take his recommendations, and try to purpose starting a purely digital and distributed currency that starts off with a multi-billion dollar market cap. But I digress. As mentioned, after this article, he wrote another follow-up here

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11844.cfm

In which he claims

"Recently, the Economic Policy Journal ran an article, "Is Bitcoin Money: What Economists Have to Say." The editor asked a dozen economists. Two said "yes, Bitcoins are money." ... Everyone else said "no.""

The article he references is here

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/10/is-bitcoin-money-what-economists-have.html

Gary North claims 13 economists, 2 yesses, and 11 no's. But read the article yourself. The actual statements are 3 yesses, 8 "not yet", and 2 no's. Many of the "not yet's" even seen positive, and claim that specific thing that North seems to miss, that bitcoin must continue to grow to become more widely accepted as money.  Honestly, I didn't even read the rest of his rebuttal after this "2 yes and the rest no" claim...

So, did Gary North pretty much lie to try to make his case?

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[zimmah]

1 word, politicians.

[GigaCoin]

he's just upset he didn't buy in when it was cheap

[CoinCidental]

he's just upset he didn't buy in when it was cheap

its still cheap  ........

[DeathAndTaxes]

he's just upset he didn't buy in when it was cheap

its still cheap  ........

But he won't realize that except in the rear view mirror so he will be claiming the same nonsense two years from now when Bitcoin is 10x larger.

[Desensitizer]

Gary North, supposedly an economic advisor to Ron Paul, and a predictor that the world would collapse due to Y2K, wrote an article claiming that Bitcoin is a Ponzi bubble.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/11/gary-north/is-bitcoin-a-ponzi-scheme/

That claim was thoroughly debunked (or not, depending on whom you asked) by John Mather here

http://libertarianstandard.com/2013/12/01/ponzi-logic-debunking-gary-north/

In response, Gary North wrote two rebuttals. In the first, he claims that he never called bitcoin a fraud, despite that being the implication of calling it a ponzi bubble, AND that bitcoin consists of people making up be to sell it off to the next fool.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11843.cfm

In this one he also continuously makes the mistake of not recognizing that for a currency to get big enough to actually support any level of economic activity, it MUST grow rapidly if it started at $0. The whole argument seems dumb if you take his recommendations, and try to purpose starting a purely digital and distributed currency that starts off with a multi-billion dollar market cap. But I digress. As mentioned, after this article, he wrote another follow-up here

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11844.cfm

In which he claims

"Recently, the Economic Policy Journal ran an article, "Is Bitcoin Money: What Economists Have to Say." The editor asked a dozen economists. Two said "yes, Bitcoins are money." Here is the answer of one of the "yes" economists."

The article he references is here

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/10/is-bitcoin-money-what-economists-have.html

Gary North claims 13 economists, 2 yesses, and 11 no's. But read the article yourself. The actual statements are 3 yesses, 8 "not yet", and 2 no's. Many of the "not yet's" even seen positive, and claim that specific thing that North seems to miss, that bitcoin must continue to grow to become more widely accepted as money.  Honestly, I didn't even read the rest of his rebuttal after this "2 yes and the rest no" claim...

So, did Gary North pretty much lie to try to make his case?

I'm not sure why you felt the need to ask a question as what you stated here pretty much sums it up. It seems clear after the first few links that he rapidly disagrees with himself, and then later on goes to misrepresent data. What I would be interested to know is how Ron Paul feels about this because he is very much in favor of bitcoins.

[granolageek]

Is Gary North a liar? Either that or he is too stupid to have stayed in business as an economic pundit for 40 years. My mother bought into the y2k crazy and had a bunch of his articles.

I remember one about railroads. He frothed at the mouth about all the mom and pop shortlines that had done no y2k remediation. If he knew enough to count those short lines, then he knew that their _one_ engine was older than microprocessors, and that they could run their business on pencil and paper for long enough to get the neighborhood geek to move their data to a new computer.

I think he lies. A lot.

PS. I'm a programmer. I made a lot of money fixing real y2k problems.