The Atlantic hit piece on (the) gold (standard)

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Matt O'Brien (associate editor at The Atlantic covering business and economics. He has previously written for The New Republic) published a hit piece on Ron Paul and the gold standard last week:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...orlds-worst-economic-idea-in-2-charts/261552/

The editorial has fallacious logic (Ron is not advocating the classical gold standard, he's advocating competing currencies) and hypes the usual/standard myths (deflation during the gold standard years was not harmful deflation).

Anyway, Jim Rickards apparently took issue with Mr. O'Brien on Twitter and now they are set to debate the issue on Bloomberg TV this coming Thursday at 1pm EST:

https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/status/240112256170463234

 

[Internallydisplaced]

Good, something to look forward to as someone who is vocationally forced to watch ten hours of Bloomberg a day.

 

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The discussion over the GOP's gold standard proposals continues in spite of the fact that everybody surely knows the idea is not even taken seriously by its proponents – as we noted yesterday, there is every reason to believe it is mainly designed to angle for the votes of disaffected Ron Paul and Tea Party supporters, many of whom happen to believe in sound money. As we also pointed out, there has been a remarkable outpouring of opinion denouncing the gold standard. Unfortunately many people are misinformed about both economic history and economic theory and simply regurgitate the propaganda they have been exposed to all of their lives. Consider this our attempt to present countervailing evidence.

Demagoguery and Cherry-Picking Data

The 'Atlantic' felt it also had to weigh in on the debate, and has published an article that shows like few other examples we have examined over recent days how brainwashed the public is with regards to the issue and what utterly spurious arguments are often employed in the current wave of anti-gold propaganda. The piece is entitled “Why the Gold Standard Is the World's Worst Economic Idea, in 2 Charts”, and it proves not only what we assert above, it also shows clearly why empirical evidence cannot be used for deriving tenets of economic theory. Since we have first seen the article, its author has been forced to add a footnote, presumably because he received irate mail from readers complaining about his cherry-picking of data that seemingly fit his narrative, but he has not withdrawn his contentions.
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The skewering unfolds here: http://www.acting-man.com/?p=19285

 

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http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shou...the-gold-standard-wsDVrOKATTqyTaG5yBY1kQ.html