What is your opinion of a Y2K pessimist who didn't buy anything, but rather used all his money to get out of debt?

-- Curious (curious@bout.this), June 26, 2000

Answers

I am not CPR, nor Doc Paulie, nor yet Andy Ray. But I think I can, to some pitiful extent anticipate what their thoughts might be. To wit:

You are inconvenient. You do not sound extreme enough to fit the stereotype they cherish. However, if any of them do attempt to answer your well-meant question, they will manfully try to cast you into the pit of outer darkness, if there is any way to make it sound legitimate.

The whole problem with cpr's and Andy Ray's (I can't totally vouch for Doc Paulie) mythology is that if you are a doomer, you must have been duped into some mouth-frothing idiocy. Getting out of debt is very hard to characterize as mouth-frothing idiocy. If they respond at all, the chances are they will tut-tut, clear their throats and deplore the foolishness you were duped into as best they can.

Maybe they will attempt to redefine you as a polly. In a black-and-white world, you have to fit somewhere that is un-grey. You're either with 'em or against 'em. Why be so frigging hard to classify? Didn't you at least buy a copy of Yourdon's book or some freeze-dried cranberries?

Cripes! I mean, didn't you rush into something doomy for God's sake????? Can you be that deluded and stable at the same time????

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 26, 2000.

We exposed the hypocrisy of North's demands that people get out of debt and get cash. If a collapse was coming what good would the paper money be? In fact, one could make the argument that if a collapse was really coming, debt would have been lost when the computers dropped dead. (FALSE, banks and lenders keep multiple copies of *everything* and all have "disaster plans" so you would have had to pay sooner or later (( Aside from the fact that such "debt avoidance" was both legally and MORALLY wrong ((( as in "Thou Shalt Not Steal )))) )) ).

What does "going debt free" have to do with Y2k or being a doom zombie? Some people do not believe in debt. Some believe it is biblical to be debt free for the "seventh year". WHO CARES?

Proper financial planning would answer the question about the use of debt wisely. It is very individual and specific based on age, earning power, education, and other variables.

Being "debt free" is something that should be considered with the help of a Financial Planner not the hard money creeps like Gary North, Andy The Gold Bug or a Franklin Sanders.

How to "use money" and "Credit" properly is a complicated subject which would leave "Brian" out of any sensible discussion. You get wealthy using OPM. You can also go bankrupt big time.

Black and white didactic statements from people like Brian hardly help people who want to make important decisions about their personal affairs. But as long as he gets to inject his 1/2 cent in, he is satisfied.

Gary North's "advice" damaged peoples life savings. That was also true of those who listened to people like Jim Lord and Hyatt or Craig Smith. Gold was 320 when Gary pushed "investment coins" Now it is about $285 and continuing the 20 year down trend.

cpr

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), June 26, 2000.

Hey, I paid off a $6000 credit line and saved almost $10,000 for y2k. When I throw in the money I am saving by using my 300 gallons of $1.15 gas and all the cheap groceries I saved up, I am having a great year! Not to mention my garden. Y2k was a finacial plus for me.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), June 26, 2000.

>> [...] a complicated subject which would leave "Brian" out of any sensible discussion. <<

Love the quote marks around Brian, cpr. Have you tried to verify anything whatsoever about me, yet? Oooops! Self-answering question. My parents named me Brian. But you have a hard time believing me. After all, I am the "enemy".

I could send you a copy of the birth certificate, but, true to your doomer propensities, you insist on believing I am an agent provatcateur, sent to by dark forces to disrupt your crusade under an assumed identity.

The fact that you could verify my email address inside of minutes doesn't seem to tempt you. The fact that I have never posted under an assumed address or name doesn't impress you. You, my dear Charles, have standards to uphold. No amount of avoided work will ever undermine them.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 26, 2000.

BTW, cpr ... believe it or not:

I visited Gary North's web site to the best of memory only once. To the best of my memory I never read a single one of his diatribes from start to finish. And have I never based a single decision, financial or otherwise, on Gary North's advice. I actually share your opinion of the man's accuracy and suspct that Gary has an ulterior motive for his conclusions, based on his Christian-fundamentalist desire to remake the world as a theocracy.

However, I am not a Christian. I have no sympathy for that aspect of Gary North's views. I do not trust Gary North. And I have never bothered to investigate Gary's background in any depth or detail, because that lack of sympathy made such an investigation unnecessary.

Put that in your pipe and puzzle over it, cpr. You have a strange, skewed and unreliable view of doomers. Prove me wrong.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 26, 2000.

Curious,

Know you didn't ask me, but sounds like one of Decker's best pieces of advice.

That money could have made money faster elsewhere I doubt applies to most. Plus, changing one's attitude about debt and other things rings in the "doomer" reward.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), June 26, 2000.

I hear ya Brian. While I did visit North's site often, I just about always ignored his comments. I liked his site for the links. But after I discovered TB2K, I hardly ever went to North's. Anything of value from North was instantly posted on TB2K. Plus there was so much more Y2K info out there that North didn't discuss.

North was a 100 on the 10 scale, and I think just about everybody knew it. Some would say the same about Yourdon, but at least on the forum, there were a few hundred other opinions...

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 27, 2000.

Cpr asks "What does 'going debt free' have to do with Y2K or being a doom zombie?"

The tie-in with Y2K is obvious for someone whose Y2K fear was for a recession and who thought that Gary North ate shit.

-- Curious (curious@bout.this), June 27, 2000.

Most of the Paul Milne and INVAR types are no longer on this forum.

I prepared, but it wasn't TEOTWAWKI that I prepared for. What I did prepare for were possible short-term utility problems, possible medium-term shortages and a long-term impact on the availability of jobs.

I never did leave the city. I figured a month's supply of bottled water, canned goods and a kerosene heater were enough for the utility side of Y2k risk. But I did have somewhat more than a month's worth of sugar, coffee and canned fruit in the pantry in case the global supply chain got bogged down.

I got a good bicycle. I bought extra quarts of motor oil.

My most important Y2k prep though was my job. The job I'm at now is *much* more recession-proof than the one I had in 1998. I picked my current job carefully and with stability in mind.

-- (Fallback@Contingency.Plans), June 27, 2000.

>Hey, I paid off a $6000 credit line and saved almost $10,000 for y2k.

Good for you, Jose! I can't think of many cases where owing that much money makes sense for the individual. I just used up the last of my $1.19 gas and tp from December.

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), June 27, 2000.

curious,

My opinion of a Y2K pessimist who didn't buy anything, but rather used all his money to get out of debt is: Here is a person who was victimised by the fear, uncertainty, and dread spread by the Yourdoms and Helters of the internet and endorsed vociferously or by silent agreement by numerous pathetic memetic doomers, but retained enough sanity to act in a manner that was beneficial to them in any event - catastrophy or no.

Preparing for no reason, based upon the information at hand in any circumstance, is prudent. My argument is not, and has never been with individuals who prepared.

My argument remains with those who insist there existed a valid reason to prepare - for there clearly did not.

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

>> Here is a person who was victimised [...] in a manner that was beneficial to them [...] <<

Andy Ray, I just thought I'd get rid of the extra words that were cluttering up your main point. They didn't add anything not in the edited version, as far as I can see.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 27, 2000.

lian,

Your editting explains a lot about how you arrived at the doomer side of the debate.

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

AR, now you will get it. "Brian" will post a link to prove you wrong.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), June 27, 2000.

What "Brian" and Silly Sysman and Big Puppy et. al. forget. You did not have to "go to Gary's to get his BS". It was hand delivered to you by people like yourselves moving it from lists to forum to web sites as they screeched "Prepare, Its not Y2k Yet".

We showed before CDC how ONE single news item was distributed by the Y2k RELAY TEAMS. At the core was Gary and then a@a.a or Milne would "re-post" from Gary's SOURCE. Leaving off GN's name but sending the same MIS-LEADING STUFF.

To this day, as noted above, the RELAY TEAMS insist "I never read Gary", "I never bought Yourdon or Hyatt's book". Even at the Center for Y2k and Wasted Grant Money, it all looked "so official", so "kosher".

THAT...........PEOPLE.........IS HOW ****PROPAGANDA**** AND SLANTED INFORMATION DAMAGES AND HOW ......IT MAKES YOU DO THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER DO...........SOBER.

And NO...."BRIAN" you are not 'the Enemy'. That is YOUR method of "thinking" in Black and White, yes and no thought patterns.

Not the "enemy" at all. ASSHOLE is much more like it.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), June 27, 2000.

I have no bone to pick with you, cpr. I understand perfectly well that you were right about Y2K. This gives you the ascendancy over me. There will never come a day for the rest of my life that I can make your proud claim: Right about Y2K since 1998.

This sad fact is to my everlasting shame and to your everlasting glory.

Even Andy Ray can't make that claim. He learned it all from you. He is only a reflected light, like the moon to your sun. But, Andy Ray saw the light sooner than I did. He drew near to the warmth of your intellect, and drew strength and inspiration from you whilke I was still nursing my FUD like a viper to my breast.

On behalf of all deluded people everywhere, let me say that the day I threw off my delusions and embraced your rightness about Y2K was a day unlike any other day. It made me happy to think that I could embrace your rightness about Y2K from now on and stop living a lie.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), June 27, 2000.

2 wrds 4 Brn-

Oh

Brthr

-- mr cnsnnt (1@"o".nly), June 27, 2000.