Hello Jim,
Howdy.
At it again, are we? :o)
Well, there you go. Again.
You know, Graham paid a hefty price for promoting OSgold,
GK claims some loss. It is by no means clear to me that the amount he claims to have lost is more than the amount he made in exchanging it with others. I suspect just the opposite. If he had not been making a profit on sales of OSGold, he would not have been promoting it.
having put his wallet where his mouth was.
GK certainly put his mouth - expressed his enthusiasm - for currencies which were profitable for him to exchange.
Now, if INTgold is another dud, he is likely to get burnt another hole into his pocket.
Whereas dozens, hundreds, or perhaps thousands of customers will be burnt as well. Shall I mark you down for the cheering section? Yay lions, boo Christians?
I understand that innocent till proven guilty does not apply in line your line of thinking if a party has been guilty of a similar deed before, do I read you right?
I think you mistake a discussion list for a court of law. You seem to think that GK is on trial and that you are nominated his solicitor. I'm not engaged in trying or punishing GK. I am, however, mentioning events which I think are pertinent to GK's counterattack on Frank when Frank made mention of some problems with INTGold. Frank presented what I saw as interesting evidence of complaints, to which GK seems to retort that there are no other reports of difficulty with INTGold anywhere, as if to discredit Frank's report. (It is all hearsay to me, yet I credit Frank and don't credit GK. Huh.)
In a discussion of which currencies are trustworthy, it matters who thinks they are trustworthy. I don't think GK has ever made any meaningful act of contrition for his role in perhaps thousands of people getting screwed holding OSGold to the end. GK had, up until roughly 7 July 2002 been selling OSGold and telling everyone that it was a fine currency, a great currency, certainly going to recover from its banking difficulties, as far as I can see.
In other words, GK used terrible judgement in my view. He now seems to be using the same sort of lousy judgement with respect to INTGold. I'm not going to let go of the view that GK has poor judgement and should not be regarded as an expert judge of currency quality. I think it would be a disservice to the readers of this list to do so.
Anytime I see GK posting to this list that INTGold is a good currency, I'm prepared to bring up the OSGold fiasco. I think the comparison is useful to the readers of this list.
So, if someone was the driver in a road accident a year ago, he shouldn't be permitted to ever take passengers aboard again?
I don't permit drivers. I think the whole notion of driver permits is based on a truly asinine, stupid concept of the automobile as an inherently dangerous device. The world got along for tens of thousands of years, roughly 35,000 by some accounts, with people driving horses and even chariots and wagons without being licensed or permitted. If you want a state with the power to deny permission for you to use your property, go live in a police state. Er, maybe you do.
I don't trust GK. I've made it very clear that I don't trust GK. In addition to his really poor judgement on OSGold, in addition to what appears to me to be similar poor reasoning on BrightPay, in addition to the way he treated a fellow exchanger on, as I recall, BrightPay, in addition to what appears to be really similar poor reasoning on INTGold, I had an exchange with his outfit in March 2002, which, as I recall, he changed the rate on in mid-stream. So, unless I see some acts of contrition on GK's part, I don't intend to forgive. Even were I to forgive, I would not be willing to forget.
Now, as to this hypothetical driver who has smashed up to thousands of passengers in his wreck a year ago, yeah, he might be taking more passengers on board. I'm not going to be one of them. Is that okay with you? Or do people in your police state have to hop aboard when the maniac is driving if you happen to like the destination? I'm also going to tell other potential passengers that there is something wrong with this driver, that there might be a difficulty ahead with the destination.
Now, I am not defending INTgold,
Why not?
although they did finally list our hosting services in their merchant directory (yeay),
Really. In there with the apparent Ponzi schemes? I suppose victory is where you find it.
but am really trying to figure out why you keep battering Graham
I'd like to know why you keep using violent metaphors for my writing. I'm presenting information that indicates, to use your driver metaphor, what kind of driver is at the wheel. If passengers don't care for that data, they are quite capable of hopping on board his bus.
There is no violence in having my say.
for something he did over a year ago,
Would it matter if he did it five years ago? Has he done anything to change my mind about who he is in the matter of online currencies? I saw him promoting BrightPay. I saw a fellow exchanger get hurt in a BrightPay deal. I saw him promoting OSGold. I saw a bunch of people get hurt in OSGold deals. I see him promoting INTGold. And, what? I'm supposed to wait a year and see whether INTGold goes to the wall?
paid a hefty price for
Again, I think you are arguing from facts not in evidence, counselor. There is no evidence that the loss I seem to recall GK claiming is greater than the amount of all exchange fees he was paid for OSGold exchanges. I don't recall him making any such claim. Were he to make these claims, I wouldn't believe them without audited financials from a third party auditor I found trustworthy.
You want to express sympathy for GK's losses on OSGold, please make him provide audited financials to prove these losses. And show audited financials for the gains on OSGold related exchanges.
and may or may not be doing again, mainly at his own expense?
Whose expense? GK is making exchanges into and out of INTGold at his own expense? He isn't facilitating exchanges by or for others with their money? That seems strange.
Before you start quoting the figures of people who lost funds with OSgold and repeating that Graham was still selling OS when it was pretty clear that they were about to fail, let me ask you this:
What if I say "no"? I'll quote figures and make statements as I please.
In fact, I haven't quoted the only figure I've ever heard for the number of people harmed by OSGold, sixty thousand, nor the only figure I've seen for the amount lost, some dozens of millions, because I'm not able to verify these figures.
If Graham had not sold those people OSgold, do you think those people would not have lost their money?
I have no way of knowing, and neither do you. I do think that GK has been a trusted exchanger used by, based on his claims, some 30,000 customers on a regular basis. If they didn't trust his views, I doubt if they'd partake of his services.
Do you think that if GK had told those people not to buy OSGold that they would have rushed out to do so?
No serious, do you really think so?
Some of those people may not have lost their money. I don't think that's the point, though. The point is that if a reckless driver is behind the wheel, I'm not going to get on board the bus and I'm going to do what I can to alert the other passengers that there is a maniac at the wheel. Maybe you don't like the fact that the INTGold badness could stick to you like the proverbial tar baby one day. Rough.
It's a bit like selling a gun, something I guess you might better relate to. People with guns kill people.
People without guns have been doing a fine job of killing each other for well over 100,000 years, according to the fossil record. Mountain climbing enthusiasts found a frozen 5,000 year old man in the Italian Alps a few years ago, and it looks like he was killed in a fight with some guys armed with the high powered projectile weapons of their day, bows and arrows. Guns are tools.
Gun makers know that people with guns *might* kill people.
Yes. They also know that people with guns might defend themselves, their property, or their freedom. I am sure that you don't favor these things, given your apparent enthusiasm for permitting drivers who've injured passengers.
Yet they continue manufacturing and selling them - with your vocal blessings - I might add.
Indeed. I gather you condemn gun manufacturing based on some utopian idea that those gun-toting badge wearing thugs in government are going to be nice to everyone once they have a monopoly on gun ownership?
So Graham was promoting hair-trigger semi-automatic rifles at discount with extra ammo.
He has not been at any time I've seen his web site.
People shot themselves and others in the foot.
I'm not clear on your new analogy. Stick with the bus driver.
Graham now offers a new brand gun, that may or may not be just as dangerous.
This new brand doesn't seem well made, to me.
But he ain't not forcing noone at gunpoint to buy, is he?
Ain't not? Double negative? Are you trying to lampoon the way Texans talk?
I don't seem to recall ever having said that GK was holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy OSGold. Maybe you'd like to point out where I've said something of that nature.
So, being a libertarian soul as you claim to be, shouldn't you just thrive in the thought that Graham is increasing people's choices?
I don't claim to be a libertarian. My philosophy is libertarian to the extent that it is very clearly not authoritarian.
GK is free to offer to sell garbage if he pleases. I'm free to identify it as wet, stinky garbage if I please (and should it please the owner/moderator of this list).
Graham is not making the guns,
Making guns kills surprisingly few people. Using guns in self-defense kills surprisingly few people. Yet, guns can be used by bad people to do bad things. Perhaps it is the bad people who should be criticized, or the bad things they do, rather than the guns.
he just sells them when people come to his shop,
He is free to offer to sell manure to people who want fresh fruit. I'm going to tell people who are about to put manure in their mouths that it isn't fresh fruit, won't give them pleasure, whenever I please.
Horse apples are not good eating.
or do I see that wrong?
I'm not where you are, so I am not able to guess at what you might see. A fair witness would not agree to say that you see anything.
You are welcome to have your opinion. The fact that you apparently don't like what I have to say suggests that you shouldn't read what I write. You certainly haven't deterred me from writing what I please.
Besides, GK is a big boy. He can stand up for himself.
Regards,
Jim
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