George Soros predicts depression, police state, class war in

[BrainGlutton]

Talking to Newsweek: (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.html)

Has the great short seller gone soft? Well, yes. Sitting in his 33rd-floor corner office high above Seventh Avenue in New York, preparing for his trip to Davos, he is more concerned with surviving than staying rich. “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of “evil.” Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether.

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

<snip>

Soros draws on his past to argue that the global economic crisis is as significant, and unpredictable, as the end of communism. “The collapse of the Soviet system was a pretty extraordinary event, and we are currently experiencing something similar in the developed world, without fully realizing what’s happening.” To Soros, the spectacular debunking of the credo of efficient markets—the notion that markets are rational and can regulate themselves to avert disaster—“is comparable to the collapse of Marxism as a political system. The prevailing interpretation has turned out to be very misleading. It assumes perfect knowledge, which is very far removed from reality. We need to move from the Age of Reason to the Age of Fallibility in order to have a proper understanding of the problems.”

<snip>

While Soros, whose new book, Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States, will be published in early February, is currently focused on Europe, he’s quick to claim that economic and social divisions in the U.S. will deepen, too. He sympathizes with the Occupy movement, which articulates a widespread disillusionment with capitalism that he shares. People “have reason to be frustrated and angry” at the cost of rescuing the banking system, a cost largely borne by taxpayers rather than shareholders or bondholders.

Occupy Wall Street “is an inchoate, leaderless manifestation of protest,” but it will grow. It has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.” He reaches for analysis, produced by the political blog ThinkProgress.org, that shows how the Occupy movement has pushed issues of unemployment up the agenda of major news organizations, including MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. It reveals that in one week in July of last year the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on major U.S. TV news networks. By October, mentions of the word “debt” had dropped to 398 over the course of a week, while “occupy” was mentioned 1,278 times, “Wall Street” 2,378 times, and “jobs” 2,738 times. You can’t keep a financier away from his metrics.

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

:eek:

Well, I dunno. We've heard that warning before -- how much closer to a police state are we now than before 9/11, really?

If there is a glimmer of hope for the world in 2012, Soros believes it lies in emerging markets. The democratic-reform movement that has spread across the Middle East, the rise of democracy and economic growth in Africa, even reform in Russia may yet drag the world out of the mire. “While the developed world is in a deep crisis, the future for the developing world is very positive. The aspiration of people for an open society is very inspiring. You have people in Africa lining up for many hours when they are given an opportunity to vote. Dictators have been overthrown. It is very encouraging for freedom and growth.”

Well, that's something.

[Linden Arden]

Soros is presaging a Newt Gingrich presidency too soon in my opinion.

The 85% or so of the employed here will sustain economic activity of 2% plus. If the 15% rise up they will be ignored (sadly).

[JohnT]

Is he obliquely warning us he's going to take down our currency like he did Britain's in 1992? ;)

[BrainGlutton]

Is he obliquely warning us he's going to take down our currency like he did Britain's in 1992? ;)

Not this time.

. . . For the first time in his 60-year career, Soros, now 81, admits he is not sure what to do. “It’s very hard to know how you can be right, given the damage that was done during the boom years,” Soros says. He won’t discuss his portfolio, lest anyone think he’s talking things down to make a buck. But people who know him well say he advocates making long-term stock picks with solid companies, avoiding gold—“the ultimate bubble”—and, mainly, holding cash.

He’s not even doing the one thing that you would expect from a man who knows a crippled currency when he sees one: shorting the euro, and perhaps even the U.S. dollar, to hell. Quite the reverse. He backs the beleaguered euro, publicly urging European leaders to do whatever it takes to ensure its survival. “The euro must survive because the alternative—a breakup—would cause a meltdown that Europe, the world, can’t afford.” He has bought about $2 billion in European bonds, mainly Italian, from MF Global Holdings Ltd., the securities firm run by former Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine that filed for bankruptcy protection last October.

[Linden Arden]

Soros is a genius and a great capitalist, freedom fighter, and opponent of communism/socialism.

Its a sign of modern insanity that the right attacks him 24/7. It shows the influence retards like Glenn Beck have on our body politic.

[tomndebb]

Well, I dunno. We've heard that warning before -- how much closer to a police state are we now than before 9/11, really?Is this supposed to be the topic to debate?

[FinnAgain]

Hey, the sooner we get to a gritty, cyberpunk future the better.

[BrainGlutton]

Is this supposed to be the topic to debate?

Well, generally whether he's right, or why not.

[puddleglum]

To Soros, the spectacular debunking of the credo of efficient markets—the notion that markets are rational and can regulate themselves to avert disaster—“is comparable to the collapse of Marxism as a political system. The prevailing interpretation has turned out to be very misleading. It assumes perfect knowledge, which is very far removed from reality. We need to move from the Age of Reason to the Age of Fallibility in order to have a proper understanding of the problems.”

This is not what the efficient market theory says. It is also exactly the opposite of what people who think markets can regulate themselves say. The idea that you can regulate markets is one that assumes perfect knowledge.
Occupy Wall Street “is an inchoate, leaderless manifestation of protest,” but it will grow. It has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.” He reaches for analysis, produced by the political blog ThinkProgress.org, that shows how the Occupy movement has pushed issues of unemployment up the agenda of major news organizations, including MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. It reveals that in one week in July of last year the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on major U.S. TV news networks. By October, mentions of the word “debt” had dropped to 398 over the course of a week, while “occupy” was mentioned 1,278 times, “Wall Street” 2,378 times, and “jobs” 2,738 times. You can’t keep a financier away from his metrics.

This is just astonishingly ignorant, Occupy Wall Street has already seen its zenith and if Barry O is reelected it will wither away to nothing. The reason that debt was in the news in July was because of the debt ceiling negotiations and the reason Wall Street was mentioned in October was because of the protests. During the NBA playoffs basketball is mentioned on ESPN more than football and when football season is underway it gets mentioned more often. High unemployment is always an issues during election years, it was just as big in 1992 and 1980. A bad economy is always the biggest issue in campaigns because it affects the most people, not because a bunch of hippies decided to overthrow capitalism using drum circles.

[BrainGlutton]

This is just astonishingly ignorant, Occupy Wall Street has already seen its zenith and if Barry O is reelected it will wither away to nothing.

And you know that how?

[puddleglum]

And you know that how?

In order to grow OWS would have to appeal to people other than the professional aggrieved. It got tons of great press from sympathetic media and was never able to do that. Then it disintegrated into rioting and violence with even the most liberals city politicians turning against it. Its camps became squalid and filled with lice and rats. Based upon my knowledge of what appeals to the american public, violent people living in squalor and filth have a very narrow appeal to rational people.

[ralph124c]

Indeed, he did buy about $6.3 billion in bonded debt from MF Global. He paid about $2 billion, so it is in his interest to force the USA to lend money to european banks.
This guy is for Soros-and Soros only. He doesn't give a damn about anyone else.
Of course he wants to protect the Euro-as long as YOU pay for it.

[Grumman]

Well, I dunno. We've heard that warning before -- how much closer to a police state are we now than before 9/11, really?
The Obama administration is actively aiding torturers and kidnappers by denying their victims the ability to settle their grievances in court, and by throwing the 1917 Espionage Act at anyone who dares to reveal these crimes.

[BrainGlutton]

In order to grow OWS would have to appeal to people other than the professional aggrieved. It got tons of great press from sympathetic media and was never able to do that. Then it disintegrated into rioting and violence with even the most liberals city politicians turning against it. Its camps became squalid and filled with lice and rats. Based upon my knowledge of what appeals to the american public, violent people living in squalor and filth have a very narrow appeal to rational people.

[shrug] The Revolution is not a dinner party. Don't you recall the polls we had threads on showing the OWSers more popular in America (and abroad, BTW) than the Tea Partiers? Do you really think that will change if both groups re-emerge? It won't.

[Argent Towers]

It's funny - Soros is a big opponent of gun ownership and has funded numerous gun "control" (banning) organizations. (The rumor that he owns a company called "Cerberus" which intends to buy up firearm manufacturers in order to dissolve them is absolute bullshit - totally untrue - but he is, nonetheless, anti-gun.)

So. Soros thinks that there will be a class war, a police state, and general collapse of society. And he thinks that people should not be able to own firearms in order to protect themselves from said class war, police state and general collapse of society.

I wonder - does Soros have armed bodyguards? I suspect that he does.

[miss elizabeth]

It's funny - Soros is a big opponent of gun ownership and has funded numerous gun "control" (banning) organizations. (The rumor that he owns a company called "Cerberus" which intends to buy up firearm manufacturers in order to dissolve them is absolute bullshit - totally untrue - but he is, nonetheless, anti-gun.)

So. Soros thinks that there will be a class war, a police state, and general collapse of society. And he thinks that people should not be able to own firearms in order to protect themselves from said class war, police state and general collapse of society.

I wonder - does Soros have armed bodyguards? I suspect that he does.
What every class war needs is more shootin'!

Yee Haw!

:rolleyes:

[Argent Towers]

When ya can't make a good point...say something stupid. Gotcha.

[BrainGlutton]

Well, if guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the capitalists?

[waterj2]

Well, if guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the capitalists?In the past, guillotines have been put to rather effective use.

[XT]

George is so funny, but really this plagiarizing stuff is going a bit too far. I hope he's paying the Mayan's a royalty or something for this...

-XT

[Ludovic]

I hope he's paying the Mayan's a royalty or something for this...

-XTThat Mayan's what? The Mayan's priests?

[monstro]

I call dibs on being Aunty Entity.

[XT]

That Mayan's what? The Mayan's priests?

Naw, I just threw in the extra apostrophe free of charge. :p

(or, it could be my iPad 'helping' me again. Hard to say, but thanks for pointing it out)

-XT

[jjimm]

I wonder - does Soros have armed bodyguards? I suspect that he does.I saw him speak in Oxford in '06 and he turned up on his own in a taxi.

[Isamu]

invisible armed bodyguards.

[dorsk188]

Hey, the sooner we get to a gritty, cyberpunk future the better.
Personally, I can accept the loss of a lot of my freedom if I can get me a direct neural connection to internet porn.

[grude]

The Obama administration is actively aiding torturers and kidnappers by denying their victims the ability to settle their grievances in court, and by throwing the 1917 Espionage Act at anyone who dares to reveal these crimes.

Obama made the totally unprecedented step of authorizing the killing of natural born US citizens, something Bush never even dared do.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-10-02/news/30252234_1_president-obama-citizen-protection

Awlaki was a U.S. citizen. Under our Constitution, American citizens, even those living abroad, must be charged with a crime before being sentenced. As President, I would have arrested Awlaki, brought him to the U.S., tried him and pushed for the stiffest punishment allowed by law. Treason has historically been judged to be the worst of crimes, deserving of the harshest sentencing. But what I would not do as President is what Obama has done and continues to do in spectacular fashion: circumvent the rule of law.

On Feb. 3, 2010, Dennis Blair, then the country's director of national intelligence, admitted before the House Intelligence Committee that "Being a U.S. citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives." This open admission by an Obama administration official, not even attempting to keep it classified or top secret, sets a dangerous new precedent in our history.



This is very, very scary.

[Gary Kumquat]

Obama made the totally unprecedented step of authorizing the killing of natural born US citizens, something Bush never even dared do...

...This is very, very scary.

Is it scary because the target was a natural born US citizen?

If so, can you explain why it's ok when it's a foreigner? Surely if the Pres can decide it's in the greater good for some shmuck to be taken out, their nationality isn't really any issue?

[Der Trihs]

It's funny - Soros is a big opponent of gun ownership and has funded numerous gun "control" (banning) organizations. (The rumor that he owns a company called "Cerberus" which intends to buy up firearm manufacturers in order to dissolve them is absolute bullshit - totally untrue - but he is, nonetheless, anti-gun.)

So. Soros thinks that there will be a class war, a police state, and general collapse of society. And he thinks that people should not be able to own firearms in order to protect themselves from said class war, police state and general collapse of society.Please; guns won't protect you from a police state. Gun ownership was common under Saddam in Iraq; it didn't hamper his tyranny one bit.

And that's assuming that those gun owners you think are some sort of bastion for liberty will oppose the police state. Given how they tend to be right wing and to show zero concern for any rights besides the right to own a gun, it's rather more likely those gun owners would serve as ready-made death squad members for such a regime. I'm sure the typical NRA member would love the chance to kill some liberals or "welfare queens" or homosexuals or atheists with the sanction of the government behind them. Just so long as the government guarantees them guns, it won't even occur to them that anything they are doing is wrong.

[Linden Arden]

It's funny - Soros is a big opponent of gun ownership and has funded numerous gun "control" (banning) organizations.

I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

[grude]

Is it scary because the target was a natural born US citizen?

If so, can you explain why it's ok when it's a foreigner? Surely if the Pres can decide it's in the greater good for some shmuck to be taken out, their nationality isn't really any issue?

Oh thats scary too, its just with a foreign national on foriegn soil lots of exceptions and ifs and buts can be raised. It also gets legally questionable if they can be legally kidnapped and hauled back to the US for trial. I didn't say I agreed with it or think its morally right, its just the way things have worked for decades. The CIA is legally forbidden to investigate US citizens as well, anything goes for non-citizens.

But a US citizen is different, no one in their right mind would argue that US citizens do not have constitutional rights when dealing with the US government even if not in the US. There was also nothing questionable about arresting Awlaki and hauling him back to the US for trial, he was a citizen after all.

The US government executed a US citizen with no due process, no trial, no nothing. This is the scariest slippery slope a country can be on.

[erislover]

Ah, to be in a time when the constitution defined the only things the government could do, rather than be a weak, semantically slippery check on the things it can't.

[BrainGlutton]

Ah, to be in a time when the constitution defined the only things the government could do, rather than be a weak, semantically slippery check on the things it can't.

No, what we've got now is better.

[Linden Arden]

Indeed, he did buy about $6.3 billion in bonded debt from MF Global. He paid about $2 billion, so it is in his interest to force the USA to lend money to european banks.
This guy is for Soros-and Soros only. He doesn't give a damn about anyone else.
Of course he wants to protect the Euro-as long as YOU pay for it.

This is absurd. There is ZERO evidence the US government is willing to loan to Euro-banks.

The Fed set up a swap line to the ECB so that may be confusing you.

The IMF was told that no new US funds were forthcoming. What possible reason do you have for this claim?

[Evil Captor]

The US government executed a US citizen with no due process, no trial, no nothing. This is the scariest slippery slope a country can be on.

But it was war time! We are in a war on terror! Anything goes in wartime! What if terror wins, and we all have to bow down to terror and do whatever terror says?

[Magiver]

George Soros is predicting chaos because he indirectly supports groups that promote it. His donations to the Tide Center (money targeted for specific projects) allows donations (not targeted for specific projects) to be used to fund groups like adbusters who in turn promoted the occupy wall street movement.

[BrainGlutton]

George Soros is predicting chaos because he indirectly supports groups that promote it. His donations to the Tide Center (money targeted for specific projects) allows donations (not targeted for specific projects) to be used to fund groups like adbusters who in turn promoted the occupy wall street movement.

:rolleyes: Those are not groups that "promote chaos." (N.B.: Cloward-Pivening is a myth.)

[Magiver]

:rolleyes: Those are not groups that "promote chaos." (N.B.: Cloward-Pivening is a myth.) I disagree. The mere act of occupying public space is anarchistic denial of land use as are the attempts to stop transportation of goods, and the disruption of travel.

[Gary Kumquat]

George Soros is predicting chaos because he indirectly supports groups that promote it. His donations to the Tide Center (money targeted for specific projects) allows donations (not targeted for specific projects) to be used to fund groups like adbusters who in turn promoted the occupy wall street movement.

Apologies, but just to clarify: the accusation is that he directly supports a group who indirectly supports a group that promotes a group who promote an organisation that supports the Occupy movement?

I just want to make sure I'm at the right level of degrees of kevin bacon here. Is it a 4 or a 5?

[Gary Kumquat]

I disagree. The mere act of occupying public space is anarchistic denial of land use as are the attempts to stop transportation of goods, and the disruption of travel.

That definition would actually suggest that every public rally is tantamount to anarchy. They all occupy public space, after all.

[Magiver]

Apologies, but just to clarify: the accusation is that he directly supports a group who indirectly supports a group that promotes a group who promote an organisation that supports the Occupy movement?

I just want to make sure I'm at the right level of degrees of kevin bacon here. Is it a 4 or a 5? not quite, he directly supports a group that directly supports an anarchist organization.

This is a quote directly from adbusters regarding occupation of the next G8 summit in Chicago:

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

[miss elizabeth]

Apologies, but just to clarify: the accusation is that he directly supports a group who indirectly supports a group that promotes a group who promote an organisation that supports the Occupy movement?

I just want to make sure I'm at the right level of degrees of kevin bacon here. Is it a 4 or a 5?

Thank you so much for this post. Bravo.

[Magiver]

That definition would actually suggest that every public rally is tantamount to anarchy. They all occupy public space, after all. Shutting down businesses, campuses and cities sounds like anarchy to me.

[Gary Kumquat]

Shutting down businesses, campuses and cities sounds like anarchy to me.

So any large public gathering, whether a protest or a marathon, that impacts upon routine business/university hours would qualify as anarchy in your book?

[Magiver]

Thank you so much for this post. Bravo. what, I don't get a thanks for correcting it? Soros directly supports a group that directly supports anarchists. The fact that he specifies his money not go to the anarchists just means he frees up other donations that aren't specified.

his predictions are right in line with organizations he associates himself with, even if it's on a secondary level.

[Gary Kumquat]

not quite, he directly supports a group that directly supports an anarchist organization.

This is a quote directly from adbusters regarding occupation of the next G8 summit in Chicago:

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

I am glad you have proven that adbusters supports the Occupy movement.

Now, can you please outline the connection from Soros to adbusters? Because a lot of people seem quite happy to declare that there's no such connection:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-wallstreet-protests-funding-idUSTRE79D01Q20111014

According to IRS disclosure documents from 2007-2009, the latest data available, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to Tides, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

IRS disclosure documents and reports from Tides also show that Tides gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.

The Vancouver-based Adbusters publishes a magazine with a circulation of 120,000 and is known for its spoofs of popular advertisements. It says it wants to "change the way corporations wield power" and its goal is "to topple existing power structures."

Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn said the group is 95 percent funded by subscribers paying for the magazine.

"George Soros's ideas are quite good, many of them. I wish he would give Adbusters some money, we sorely need it," he said. "He's never given us a penny."

[Magiver]

I am glad you have proven that adbusters supports the Occupy movement.
I explained it quite clearly in the very first post. Adbusters is funded in part by the Tide Center. It's right there in your own cite. The Tide Center is funded in part by Soros.

It would be no different than if the Tide Center funded the KKK. Soros would still be backing a company that funnels money to them whether he specifically dictated his money go to some other group. His targeted donations simply represent a juggling of the money donated by other people who do not specify where it goes within the Tide organization.

[Magiver]

So any large public gathering, whether a protest or a marathon, that impacts upon routine business/university hours would qualify as anarchy in your book? Yes, stopping other people from earning a living or getting an education is anarchy. It's nice that you throw in the word "protest" like some kind of moral qualifier but millions of us protest everyday without harming other people. Anarchists don't seem to be able to accomplish this most simple of tasks.