Wonderful comment by George Soros

[JDPriestly]

George Soros wrote a preface to book entitled "The Philanthropy of George Soros." The article is wonderful. It primarily discusses the meaning to Soros of his philanthropy and his work to try to insure the continuance of his philanthropic work into the future. The article is published in the New York Review of Books but also on Soros's own website.

I hope people will read the whole article, but here is an excerpt on his economic philosophy (not the focus of his comment) that I liked very much:

I have two top priorities. One is personal; the other is for my foundations. On the personal level my primary interest is to develop my conceptual framework. The theory of reflexivity I have developed over the years was studiously ignored or disparaged by academic economists and to a lesser extent by financial regulators. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, dismissed it.2 All this has changed as a result of the financial crisis. King radically revised his views: he recognized that the instability of financial markets is, as I have argued, mainly inherent to them, not caused by external factors. Lord Adair Turner, head of Britain’s Financial Stability Authority, publicly embraced reflexivity. So did Alan Greenspan, but only in private conversation. Paul Volcker had been my friend and supporter before; now we have grown much closer.

I passionately disagreed with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s plan to bail out the banks by using a public fund called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help banks take toxic assets off their balance sheets. I argued that it would be much better to put the money where the hole was and replenish the equity of the banks themselves. I worked closely with the Democratic leadership in Congress to modify the TARP act so as to allow the money to be used for the purchase of equity interests. I had many other ideas that I hoped would be put into practice when Obama became president, including a fundamental reform of the mortgage system, but that did not happen. I published a series of articles in the Financial Times but got little response from the Obama administration. I had many more discussions with Larry Summers before he became the President’s economic adviser than I did afterward. My greatest disappointment was that I was unable to establish any kind of personal contact with President Obama himself.

. . . .


The United States has been a democracy and open society since its founding. The idea that it will cease to be one seems preposterous; yet it is a very likely prospect. After September 11, the Bush administration exploited the very real fear generated by the terrorist attack, and by declaring “war on terror” was able to unite the nation behind the commander-in-chief, lead it to invade Iraq on false pretenses, and violate established standards of human rights in pursuing and interrogating terrorists.

. . . .

http://www.georgesoros.com/articles-essays/entry/my_philanthropy/

Soros discusses the threat to our democracy from the manipulation of information by people like Frank Luntz and Fox News. It's just a really great article -- long but well worth reading.

Hope you enjoy it.

[sabrina 1]

1. Thank you, he's an interesting man. I wish the Obama admin

had paid more attention to people like him than to Summers and Paulson.

[mazzarro]

2. Another glaring example of Obama distancing himself from ...

progressives and following in the path of his DLC controllers - "My greatest disappointment was that I was unable to establish any kind of personal contact with President Obama himself".