# Lifestyles & Discussion > Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies >  Max Keiser vs Alex Jones (Bitcoin)

## muh_roads

Glad Max is on board.

Alex was acting like a douche.  He clearly doesn't understand P2P & open source.

http://noworldorder.com/2013/03/12/m...jones-bitcoin/

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## muh_roads

For me personally, I think this sort of exposes who Alex really cares about (himself) and it shows how he feels threatened judging by  his immature behavior.  Bitcoin is an enemy to his sponsors, especially  metals & emergency food.  There is a lot of profit in  fear-mongering.  He can't make money off that overpriced efoodsdirect sponsor if he can't  convince people the world is ending tomorrow...

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## NewRightLibertarian

> For me personally, I think this sort of exposes who Alex really cares about (himself) and it shows how he feels threatened judging by  his immature behavior.  Bitcoin is an enemy to his sponsors, especially  metals & emergency food.  There is a lot of profit in  fear-mongering.  He can't make money off that overpriced efoodsdirect sponsor if he can't  convince people the world is ending tomorrow...


or maybe he just doesn't buy into this Bitcoin scam

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## muh_roads

> or maybe he just doesn't buy into this Bitcoin scam


How is it a scam?

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## cubical

Max is a socialist for the most part. He is a clown.

Unless you are just trying to make a quick profit(like 90% of the bitcoin owners), stay away. 10 years from now bitcoin will be laughed at.

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## muh_roads

derp

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## muh_roads

> Max is a socialist for the most part. He is a clown.
> 
> Unless you are just trying to make a quick profit(like 90% of the bitcoin owners), stay away. 10 years from now bitcoin will be laughed at.


Because?

EDIT: Also why is Max a socialist?

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## NewRightLibertarian

> How is it a scam?


It's a web currency that is backed by nothing, and I do not buy the claims that it cannot be hacked or tracked by the feds. AJ is smart for remaining skeptical.

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## Ignostic?

> It's a web currency that is backed by nothing, and I do not buy the claims that it cannot be hacked or tracked by the feds. AJ is smart for remaining skeptical.


Bitcoins are backed by bitcoins.  Kind of like gold is backed by gold.  

The only reason currencies are ever backed by something physical is to conserve scarcity.  Bitcoin solves that problem and does so in a better way than anything physical could.  

Gold has no innate value.  Nothing does.  All value is subjective.

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## Petar

Looks to me like bitcoins really do mathematically guarantee their own limited quantity, and also do provide anonymity. 

Seems like a clear-cut case of intrinsic value to me...

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## NewRightLibertarian

> Bitcoins are backed by bitcoins.  Kind of like gold is backed by gold.  
> 
> The only reason currencies are ever backed by something physical is to conserve scarcity.  Bitcoin solves that problem and does so in a better way than anything physical could.  
> 
> Gold has no innate value.  Nothing does.  All value is subjective.


Gold actually exists though in actuality. Bitcoin is nonsense created up by a computer program. If people realize that there is nothing behind the bitcoin and dump it like the worthless crap that it is, it loses all value instantly. Gold and silver at least have a history of being valuable. If I had to choose between Fed notes and Bitcoins though, I'd choose bitcoins. But I feel like buying bitcoins over gold and silver is a huge risk and will most likely ending up being a mistake.

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## hazek

> If people realize that there is nothing behind the bitcoin and dump it like the worthless crap that it is, it loses all value instantly. Gold and silver at least have a history of being valuable.


You do realize if it should happen that we are going to be able to mine a $#@! ton of gold of an asteroid it will probably likely loose much of its if not all of its monetary value since it wouldn't be scarce anymore and if you kept your wealth in gold you'd lose about 90%. With bitcoins you might lose 100% but honestly, what's the difference?

See, we can all play these what if games, however the fact is Bitcoin is here, it does what it says it does and a growing number of people trust it. Why not take advantage of this? You don't need to sell everything you have and put it into bitcoins in order to do so. You don't even have to own any to do so.

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## Ignostic?

> Gold actually exists though in actuality. Bitcoin is nonsense created up by a computer program. If people realize that there is nothing behind the bitcoin and dump it like the worthless crap that it is, it loses all value instantly. Gold and silver at least have a history of being valuable. If I had to choose between Fed notes and Bitcoins though, I'd choose bitcoins. But I feel like buying bitcoins over gold and silver is a huge risk and will most likely ending up being a mistake.


Gold's value doesn't come from its tangibility.  It comes from its utility.  That's where all value comes from.  Bitcoin has greater utility as a currency than anything else.  That is where its value comes from.  Bitcoin is worth more by not existing as something physical because that makes it more useful as a currency.

Microsoft Windows does not exist in actuality, but people have paid hundreds of billions for it over the years.  Because it is useful.

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## jmdrake

> For me personally, I think this sort of exposes who Alex really cares about (himself) and it shows how he feels threatened judging by  his immature behavior.  Bitcoin is an enemy to his sponsors, especially  metals & emergency food.  There is a lot of profit in  fear-mongering.  He can't make money off that overpriced efoodsdirect sponsor if he can't  convince people the world is ending tomorrow...


Huh?  Are you reading the link you posted?  The very last line from Alex Jones is:

_Alex Jones: Amazing. Now, I went to get into the largest geopolitical issues, but I agree. True fiat currencies that are open source are what we need to go to._

 

Oh, and check out how Alex is "hating" on Bitcoin here.  

_Alex Jones: In fact, I remember it was ’09 you told me to get into Bitcoin, I probably should have._

Immature is attacking someone for raising questions.  Mature is Keiser's actual response to Alex concern about a bubble.  (And I admit this grudgingly because I do not like Max "boycott Whole Foods for opposing Obamacare and Obama's got your back" Keiser).

_Alex Jones: In fact, I remember it was ’09 you told me to get into Bitcoin, I probably should have. My problem is the speculative bubble. What about it as a bubble?

Max Keiser: It’s volatile, it’s gonna be volatile, but it doesn’t qualify as a bubble. A bubble would be over-saturation, and people owning across the spectrum, like Nasdaq stock in 2000 were a bubble. The bonds are in a bubble. The stock market in ’87 was a bubble. Bitcoin is not owned, yet, by anywere near the penetration it could get to Alex. Let me explain the potential for Bitcoin. It could, conceivable, capture 1% to 10% of the global Forex transactions. That would mean an implied price for Bitcoin moving from $46 to $100,000, potentially $1,000,000 per Bitcoin. There’s only going to be 21 million ever created, in existence, and that’ll be it. They’ve already had 10 million created. 25 new Bitcoins are created every 10 minutes, and that’s that rate at which these are entering the economy. The Federal Reserve system hates it! They would love to kill it. They’re attacking it any way they can, but they will fail. This is what we’ve been waiting for! This is the “Cyber Christ” moment. This is when the activists that having been pushing against the Fed are gonna win with Bitcoin._

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## Petar

not to mention how amazingly portable they are.. well, once buying and selling them becomes easier anyway...

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## KingNothing

> or maybe he just doesn't buy into this Bitcoin scam


LOL

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## jmdrake

> Because?
> 
> EDIT: Also why is Max a socialist?


http://notreason.com/tag/whole-foods/

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## jmdrake

> You do realize if it should happen that we are going to be able to mine a $#@! ton of gold of an asteroid it will probably likely loose much of its if not all of its monetary value since it wouldn't be scarce anymore and if you kept your wealth in gold you'd lose about 90%. With bitcoins you might lose 100% but honestly, what's the difference?
> 
> See, we can all play these what if games, however the fact is Bitcoin is here, it does what it says it does and a growing number of people trust it. Why not take advantage of this? You don't need to sell everything you have and put it into bitcoins in order to do so. You don't even have to own any to do so.


It's sad that people are only looking at the speculative value of Bitcoins.  Bitcoins also have an intrinsic service value.  You can trade with them anonymously.  The government can't pressure some central service provider to stop doing business with you as they did with Julian Assange and his Paypal and other accounts.  For that reason, I wish the price was stable, but I realize part of what's going on is the devaluation of the dollar.  I'm not in a financial position to do much with Bitcoins now, but I'm looking at ways to earn some.  I think a diversified portfolio of PMs, BCs and other assets just makes sense.

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## Ignostic?

> Huh?  Are you reading the link you posted?  The very last line from Alex Jones is:
> 
> _Alex Jones: Amazing. Now, I went to get into the largest geopolitical issues, but I agree. True fiat currencies that are open source are what we need to go to._


Fiat doesn't mean what he thinks it means.

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## TaftFan

When I read "vs." I could only think of this.....

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## jmdrake

> Fiat doesn't mean what he thinks it means.


Maybe he doesn't.  But ignorance != attack.

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## NewRightLibertarian

> You do realize if it should happen that we are going to be able to mine a $#@! ton of gold of an asteroid it will probably likely loose much of its if not all of its monetary value since it wouldn't be scarce anymore and if you kept your wealth in gold you'd lose about 90%. With bitcoins you might lose 100% but honestly, what's the difference?


But your scenario is highly unlikely. People losing confidence in the Bitcoin could easily happen, and it would ruin the value of them permanently. Since they're based off of nothing, it is very possible that this could occur.




> See, we can all play these what if games, however the fact is Bitcoin is here, it does what it says it does and a growing number of people trust it. Why not take advantage of this? You don't need to sell everything you have and put it into bitcoins in order to do so. You don't even have to own any to do so.


I believe anything is better than Fed notes, but I'd rather put any excess money I have toward precious metals rather than roll the dice with this virtual currency.

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## Ignostic?

> Maybe he doesn't.  But ignorance != attack.


I wasn't meaning to imply that he was attacking Bitcoin.  I think there is, however, a little something implied by Alex's misuse of that word.

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## hazek

> .. but I'd rather put any excess money I have toward precious metals rather than roll the dice with this virtual currency.


Which can be easily confiscated. See? Even PMs have severe and highly likely downsides. 

If you are intellectually honest you will admit there's merit in both Bitcoin (or something like it) and PMs. And yes, maybe Bitcoin goes kaput tomorrow, but the idea of such a currency is now out there, and there's no amount of force that will ever put that genie back in the bottle.

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## Ignostic?

> But your scenario is highly unlikely. People losing confidence in the Bitcoin could easily happen, and it would ruin the value of them permanently. Since they're based off of nothing, it is very possible that this could occur.
> 
> 
> 
> I believe anything is better than Fed notes, but I'd rather put any excess money I have toward precious metals rather than roll the dice with this virtual currency.


You don't really needs hazek's asteroid example to devalue gold.  If gold was no longer looked at as a store of wealth, then it would lose a lot of its value, though not all of its value since it still has other uses besides being a currency.  Bitcoin is only useful as a currency, but it is much better at that one thing.  This makes Bitcoin riskier than gold, but with a higher potential.  

I think Bitcoin's very healthy recovery from the hack of MtGox back in 2011 is a good example of how resilient the confidence in Bitcoin is.  People learned from that incident and Bitcoin is stronger for it.  Silver has yet to recover its record high from over 30 years ago.  Everything has risk.  Except for maybe guns and ammo.  I have a hard time thinking of a scenario where the price of guns and ammo goes down.  

Bitcoin is a weird idea.  It is also a brilliant idea.  That doesn't mean it will succeed, though.  In a few years bitcoins will likely be worth thousands or nothing at all.

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## muh_roads

> Maybe he doesn't.  But ignorance != attack.


Watch the video.  Listen to his voice.  He was being a condescending prick to Max.  It drove him nuts that Max was talking about Bitcoin so much.  He had to say something halfway decent at the end because he probably still wants Max on as a guest in the future.

Alex has avoided the Bitcoin issue almost entirely for the last 4 years it has been in existence.  I would be happy if he was at least talking about it more and bashing it.  He doesn't want to talk about it at all and I find that very suspect.

Just as Bitcoin is a potential threat to Central Banks around the world.  It is also a threat to doom & gloomers like Alex who make their living off of sponsors that try to scare the living $#@! out of their listeners.  Not to say Alex is on the wrong side...what he has done for the movement is good.

But he makes more if people are miserable and paranoid...not if there is something like Bitcoin offering a glimmer of hope.

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## jmdrake

> Watch the video.  Listen to his voice.  He was being a condescending prick to Max.


Well if he was than I applaud him.  Max is a condescending prick.  After the stunt Max pulled when he endorsed Obamacare and attacked John Mackey for offering a libertarian alternative I don't know why AJ has him on the show.

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## muh_roads

> Well if he was than I applaud him.  Max is a condescending prick.  After the stunt Max pulled when he endorsed Obamacare and attacked John Mackey for offering a libertarian alternative I don't know why AJ has him on the show.


I was adding more to my previous comment as you posted yours.  I'll rephrase.  I don't really care if he attacks Max.  What I didn't like was him sounding like a condescending turd to Bitcoin thru getting to Max.  Alex clearly doesn't understand the network with the way he was attacking Nakamoto.  It is open source for $#@! sake.  If anything devious was put in there it would be exposed and Bitcoin wouldn't even be talked about right now and near $50 spot.

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## NoOneButPaul

AJ is right to be suspicious though there are better arguments to make... 

Bitcoins will be destroyed by the FED and are a waste of money in the long term because of this. I hope they get so great the Fed has to shut them down, only further showing their fascist colors, but that's the best we can hope for bitcoin. If it gets taken seriously it will be wiped out in a heartbeat. 

Competition is not allowed.

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## Indy Vidual

As the Dollar falls further, it will be easy for Bitcoin to show _real value._




> Looks to me like bitcoins really do mathematically guarantee their own limited quantity, and also do provide anonymity. 
> 
> Seems like a clear-cut case of intrinsic value to me...


+1776 Bitcoins worth ~$81,696.76

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## Indy Vidual

> Huh?  Are you reading the link you posted?  The very last line from Alex Jones is:
> 
> _Alex Jones: Amazing. Now, I went to get into the largest geopolitical issues, but I agree. True fiat currencies that are open source are what we need to go to._
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, and check out how Alex is "hating" on Bitcoin here.  
> 
> _Alex Jones: In fact, I remember it was 09 you told me to get into Bitcoin, I probably should have._
> ...


+Rep for checking the source.

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## cubical

> Because?
> 
> EDIT: Also why is Max a socialist?


Because it wreaks of pump and dump. Everyone involved in bitcoin is interested in making a profit and that is how everyone is speaking about it. It is simply nothing but numbers on a screen backed by nothing except speculation.

Whereas things like gold, the people who hold it already have wealth. They are simply using it to store their excess production. There is a 5000 year history of people desiring gold.


Max has socialist tendencies. Huge pusher of global warming and banking regulations among other things.

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## anaconda

I find Max impressive but an exception to this was how he weaselly "claimed victory" with his prediction of the financial collapse by April 2013 because of the Bitcoin exchange rate. This is silly. He didn't call it right (unless it happens in the next 48 days) and he should just own up to it.

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## muh_roads

> Because it wreaks of pump and dump. Everyone involved in bitcoin is interested in making a profit and that is how everyone is speaking about it. It is simply nothing but numbers on a screen backed by nothing except speculation.
> 
> Whereas things like gold, the people who hold it already have wealth. They are simply using it to store their excess production. There is a 5000 year history of people desiring gold.


People that buy metals also want profit.  So what?  Look how many people cheer when the dollar falls on this board, or get pissed and confused when it rises.  How hypocritical to say only the "Bitcoiners" are the only greedy ones...yet metal owners get a free pass?

I don't just want to profit, I want to see everyone profit.  If btc can manage to grab 1% of the entire forex, that would be huge.  13 million coins by next year is not a whole lot to spread around.  As what someone else said, intrinsic value is traded for utility.   In the 5000 year history that you mention, sending money digitally in a global economy didn't exist but now it does and that has a huge need to fill.  It can't be done with metal.  It doesn't cut it.  It is heavy, you need it insured, and you have to trust the shipping company you chose.

Sending money to anyone anywhere in the world in a fraction of a second with btc is amazing.  And many governments overseas make it difficult to wire transfer funds to other vendors outside of their countries.  This ability is nothing to sneeze at.

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## S.Shorland

The price collapsed recently (last year/2 years now?) and a young guy bought them all on a 0.01 buy stop order.Then that trade was broken.If there are exchanges and interfaces and an overseeing entity that can decide you don't own what you own,it's a piece of cr=p.

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## jclay2

> Max Keiser: Its volatile, its gonna be volatile, but it doesnt qualify as a bubble. A bubble would be over-saturation, and people owning across the spectrum, like Nasdaq stock in 2000 were a bubble. The bonds are in a bubble. The stock market in 87 was a bubble. Bitcoin is not owned, yet, by anywere near the penetration it could get to Alex. Let me explain the potential for Bitcoin. It could, conceivable, capture 1% to 10% of the global Forex transactions. *That would mean an implied price for Bitcoin moving from $46 to $100,000, potentially $1,000,000 per Bitcoin. Theres only going to be 21 million ever created, in existence, and thatll be it. Theyve already had 10 million created.* 25 new Bitcoins are created every 10 minutes, and thats that rate at which these are entering the economy. The Federal Reserve system hates it! They would love to kill it. Theyre attacking it any way they can, but they will fail. This is what weve been waiting for! This is the Cyber Christ moment. This is when the activists that having been pushing against the Fed are gonna win with Bitcoin.[/i]


Seems much more about profiting than having a store of wealth. I know max doesn't speak for everyone, I just think that this type of thinking is not that atypical.

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## itshappening

$12k worth of bitcoins hacked and stolen:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/08/hac...-based-attack/

just sayin'

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## itshappening

> I find Max impressive but an exception to this was how he weaselly "claimed victory" with his prediction of the financial collapse by April 2013 because of the Bitcoin exchange rate. This is silly. He didn't call it right (unless it happens in the next 48 days) and he should just own up to it.


People are stupid putting dates on economic collapses.  A proper Austrian knows well enough not to do it.  It's just not possible to predict timing.

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## muh_roads

> $12k worth of bitcoins hacked and stolen:
> 
> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/08/hac...-based-attack/
> 
> just sayin'


No I don't know what you're "sayin'".

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## DGambler

Bump, since people are talking about BTC again, thought I'd resurrect this thread.




> Max Keiser: It’s volatile, it’s gonna be volatile, but it doesn’t qualify as a bubble. A bubble would be over-saturation, and people owning across the spectrum, like Nasdaq stock in 2000 were a bubble. The bonds are in a bubble. The stock market in ’87 was a bubble. Bitcoin is not owned, yet, by anywere near the penetration it could get to Alex. Let me explain the potential for Bitcoin. *It could, conceivable, capture 1% to 10% of the global Forex transactions. That would mean an implied price for Bitcoin moving from $46 to $100,000, potentially $1,000,000 per Bitcoin. There’s only going to be 21 million ever created, in existence, and that’ll be it.* They’ve already had 10 million created. 25 new Bitcoins are created every 10 minutes, and that’s that rate at which these are entering the economy. The Federal Reserve system hates it! They would love to kill it. They’re attacking it any way they can, but they will fail. This is what we’ve been waiting for! This is the “Cyber Christ” moment. This is when the activists that having been pushing against the Fed are gonna win with Bitcoin.

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## muh_roads

Does anybody find it weird that Alex Jones hasn't said anything about Bitcoin?  He'll only report bad news for it like a bubble bursting or SR getting busted.  Surely he is aware of many people that believe in it for Anti-Fed reasons.  Whether he agrees with that or not, you'd think he would at least respect it.

I think Bitcoin is going to expose who our real friends are going forward.

 - Schiff hates it because of the payment processor aspect.  Transaction fees is how Schiff makes a living.  Bitcoin can go direct to international business getting around FOREX.

 - With Alex is the conspiratorial stuff.  He profits off of those who feel hopeless but like reading about the end of the world.  He might lose his fanbase if something like Bitcoin gives people hope for the future.

I'm disappointed Ron Paul hasn't given it better support.  I would've thought a supporter close to him would've explained it.

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