George Soros predicts depression, police state, class war in

[BrainGlutton]

Talking to Newsweek:

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]

@JohnT

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]

@BrainGlutton

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]

@tomndebb

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]

@puddleglum

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]

@BrainGlutton

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]

@BrainGlutton

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]

@puddleglum

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]

@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.

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]

@BrainGlutton

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