Icon of the Left: George Soros

[California Girl]

So where do you get off slinging his shit on posters here in this thread after they TOLD you he is by no means their ICON.

Because he is... an icon of the left. Not individuals... an ideology... left wing politics... not individuals. Just like Rush Limbaugh is an icon of the right.... certainly not me as an individual, but most definitely of the right wing. See how that works?

People really need to learn to think more logically and stop the hyperbole.

Pure-Comedy-GOLD!!

Pure-Drunk Blathering.

Sad bastard.

 

[Ravi]

The OP is really just bashing a person, not the condition that allowed this person to become obscenely rich. Not at call for regulating the currency futures market. Not a call for regulation at all.

Was Soros ruthless? Sure. So was just about every rich mofo out there. They exploited the fact there were no laws or regulations prohibiting the sort of behavior they engaged in.

So as such..this is nothing more then an intellectually bankrupt troll thread from an intellectually bankrupt troll.

Fox news must've had their DAILY expose' on Soros again ZZZzzz. Whats w/ conservatives and bogeymen anyway? Why are cons like caligirl & si modo obsessed w/ him? Must be that con media drum- beat.

Yea, that must be it.

Fucking moron.

And yet, still the left do not address the actual topic. How fascinating.

Fastest horse.

 

[L.K.Eder]

So where do you get off slinging his shit on posters here in this thread after they TOLD you he is by no means their ICON.

Because he is... an icon of the left. Not individuals... an ideology... left wing politics... not individuals. Just like Rush Limbaugh is an icon of the right.... certainly not me as an individual, but most definitely of the right wing. See how that works?

People really need to learn to think more logically and stop the hyperbole.

Pure-Comedy-GOLD!!

if she were self-aware, one could think she is doing this on purpose. as a kind of accomplished troll.

but, sadly, she just is that kind of dumb.

but it is fun to watch.

 

[rightwinger]

yeah, soros should be a hero of capitalism.

but what do you know,

california brat "did a paper" on george soros.

Ironically, Soros is a big believer in government intervention in the economy.

I don't blame the Right was disliking him because he is a harsh critic of their policies, often unfairly IMHO. But he certainly knows markets better than most who purport to support the free market.

BTW, he is an asshole. I've never met him, but I know people who've worked for him.

You too? I know an economist who worked for him. And you think I'm hard on Soros, you should hear what he has to say about him.

Soros is dangerous to the country... and the world.

I have a friend whose next door neighbors brother-in-law once cut Soros's lawn. The word is that Soros loves puppies and kittens and spends weekends helping old ladies cross the street

 

[Ravi]

The OP is really just bashing a person, not the condition that allowed this person to become obscenely rich. Not at call for regulating the currency futures market. Not a call for regulation at all.

Was Soros ruthless? Sure. So was just about every rich mofo out there. They exploited the fact there were no laws or regulations prohibiting the sort of behavior they engaged in.

So as such..this is nothing more then an intellectually bankrupt troll thread from an intellectually bankrupt troll.

Yep. Including the strawman title.

This thread is almost as funny as when Queasy and CG marched around admiring that nutty nazi war reenactor.

Almost.

There's that old hyperbolic bullshit again. Not once did I say anything about 'admiring' him. That is a lie. Ravi, I expect better of you. Disagree with me all you want but don't lie about what I say.

It's no wonder some people struggle with facts.... y'all seem to think it's not lying to make shit up about other people. But it is.

Not lying, dear. Just pointing out facts.

The lie is in your OP.

 

[L.K.Eder]

Ironically, Soros is a big believer in government intervention in the economy.

I don't blame the Right was disliking him because he is a harsh critic of their policies, often unfairly IMHO. But he certainly knows markets better than most who purport to support the free market.

BTW, he is an asshole. I've never met him, but I know people who've worked for him.

You too? I know an economist who worked for him. And you think I'm hard on Soros, you should hear what he has to say about him.

Soros is dangerous to the country... and the world.

I have a friend whose next door neighbors brother-in-law once cut Soros's lawn. The word is that Soros loves puppies and kittens and spends weekends helping old ladies cross the street

i know that guy.

he is awesome.

 

[Sallow]

Ironically, Soros is a big believer in government intervention in the economy.

I don't blame the Right was disliking him because he is a harsh critic of their policies, often unfairly IMHO. But he certainly knows markets better than most who purport to support the free market.

BTW, he is an asshole. I've never met him, but I know people who've worked for him.

You too? I know an economist who worked for him. And you think I'm hard on Soros, you should hear what he has to say about him.

Soros is dangerous to the country... and the world.

I have a friend whose next door neighbors brother-in-law once cut Soros's lawn. The word is that Soros loves puppies and kittens and spends weekends helping old ladies cross the street

Next you'll be saying he was kind to his mother!

 

[Sallow]

Because he is... an icon of the left. Not individuals... an ideology... left wing politics... not individuals. Just like Rush Limbaugh is an icon of the right.... certainly not me as an individual, but most definitely of the right wing. See how that works?

People really need to learn to think more logically and stop the hyperbole.

Pure-Comedy-GOLD!!

Pure-Drunk Blathering.

Sad bastard.

Do you still have teeth? I hear crack is bad for that.

And Crack is whack..girl.

 

[Ravi]

So, how did this multi-billionaire and self proclaimed philanthropist make his money? Wall Street. ( ) Yep, he was one of those evil hedge funders, and currency speculators. As a currency speculator, back in 1992, he became known in England as the 'man who broke the Bank of England'. So what? Big deal, right? He shorted the British pound by leveraging billions of pounds of financial bets. But.... he didn't just 'break' the Bank of England. He broke the British economy, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ordinary hard working Britons, who lost their homes, their jobs, their pensions and their life savings. Why? Because he could. Because making money was more important than ordinary, hard working people - albeit they were not Americans.

This is factually incorrect. He did not break the British economy. He did not cause people to lose their jobs. He did not cause pensions to be wiped out. Nobody lost their life savings because of Soros. In fact, it is quite the opposite. George Soros probably did more to create employment and economic growth in the UK during the early and mid-90s than any other single individual.

Conservatives have demonized George Soros so much and have developed such deep pathological biases against the man, they essentially argue for government intervention and that government knows better than the market. Conservatives shouldn't condemn Soros for breaking the Bank of England. Conservatives should applaud Soros. At least those conservatives who believe in free markets. Because if you believe in free markets, Soros unshackled the currency markets which allowed the pound to fall to its true market level.

A quick Google search would have shown that in fact, the British economy accelerated after Soros broke the Bank of England. You can see the graph here.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The pound was forced out of the ERM - the forerunner of the euro - by Soros in September 1992. GDP growth was as follows;

1991 -1.4%
1992 +0.1%
1993 +2.2%
1994 +4.3%

The pound was pegged within a band against the mark in what was known as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The peg was set through monetary policy via the Bank of England, i.e. the government's bank set the interest rate. If the government wanted a strong pound, it raised the interest rates. If it wanted a weak pound, it lowered interest rates. The pound was supposed to trade with a band of DM2.80-DM3.20. The currency market did not trade freely. In fact, it was very much the opposite. The free market was not allowed to work as the British government kept the pound artificially strong to keep it within the ERM.

To combat inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s - which got as high as 11% - the Bank of England jacked up interest rates to nearly 15%. This caused the British economy to grind to a halt as economic growth turned negative in 1991. The monetary policy worked as inflation fell to 3.5% by the summer of 1992. Here are the data sets for interest rates and inflation.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/c...011/cpi-and-rpi-detailed-reference-tables.xls
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNEROveCPdE410lbKccZSrg9pioyKA&cad=rja

However, interest rates were nearly 10% in the summer of 1992, meaning real rates of interest were 6.5%, which is extraordinarily tight. (In a normal environment, real interest rates are 2%-3%.) This was strangling the British economy. Interest rates should have been much lower. Soros knew it. If the Bank of England had lowered the Bank Rate - as it should have, given the economic fundamentals - then the pound would have declined below its lower band in the ERM. But the British government wanted to stay within the ERM. They wanted to save face. The pound was artificially high and kept high because the UK was in the ERM.

If you believe in the efficacy of markets, you knew this was simply untenable, no different than Greece's predicament in the eurozone today. So Soros - as he should have - bet heavily against the pound.

And the markets believed him. If you believe in markets, and if Soros had been wrong, the pound would have quickly risen after it fell out of the ERM. But that's not what happened, as you can see here.

Also, if Soros had been wrong, the British government could have maintained their high interest rates. But they did not. Instead, they slashed interest rates, knowing that the battle to keep the pound in the ERM was lost. No longer needing to keep interest rates high to defend the value of the pound, the Bank Rate was slashed from 9.875% in the summer of 1992 to 6.875% in November and eventually to 5.125% in 1994.

And what happened? Well, as conventional monetary theory would expect, the economy recovered. Monetary policy works with a lag of 12-24 months. Unemployment, which was 9.9% in September 1992, after having risen from 6.9% two years earlier, peaked a year later and was below 10% at the start of 1994, beginning a long, downward trek in unemployment for years thereafter.

You can see employment by downloading this table, which is table A02

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2011/table-a02.xls
Release Edition Reference Tables

The same came be said of the Asian Contagion in 1997. Politicians love to demonize outsiders for their woes, and the leaders of various SE Asian countries did just that as their economies collapsed in 1997 and 1998. Soros, who was very public in his attack on the British pound, denied any involvement in shorting the Asian currencies. In fact, at the time, he said he was slightly long Asian currencies. I don't know if that's true or not, but the simple fact is that like Britain five years earlier, the Asian economies had pegged their currencies, only this time to the dollar, which created enormous imbalances in the economies. It was only a matter of time - if you believe in free markets - before the system collapsed. And it did.

Thanks....I read that elsewhere. The pound rebounded stronger than ever. But wingnut fantasies die hard.

 

[Si modo]

Yep. Including the strawman title.

This thread is almost as funny as when Queasy and CG marched around admiring that nutty nazi war reenactor.

Almost.

There's that old hyperbolic bullshit again. Not once did I say anything about 'admiring' him. That is a lie. Ravi, I expect better of you. Disagree with me all you want but don't lie about what I say.

It's no wonder some people struggle with facts.... y'all seem to think it's not lying to make shit up about other people. But it is.

Not lying, dear. Just pointing out facts.

The lie is in your OP.

It is untrue that I ever admired him. That is a fact.

Thus, you lied.

I am the foremost expert on knowing who I admire and who I don't. And, if I admired him, one would think I would actually recall his name.

Shall I lie about you, now?

 

[Ravi]

So, how did this multi-billionaire and self proclaimed philanthropist make his money? Wall Street. ( ) Yep, he was one of those evil hedge funders, and currency speculators. As a currency speculator, back in 1992, he became known in England as the 'man who broke the Bank of England'. So what? Big deal, right? He shorted the British pound by leveraging billions of pounds of financial bets. But.... he didn't just 'break' the Bank of England. He broke the British economy, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ordinary hard working Britons, who lost their homes, their jobs, their pensions and their life savings. Why? Because he could. Because making money was more important than ordinary, hard working people - albeit they were not Americans.

This is factually incorrect. He did not break the British economy. He did not cause people to lose their jobs. He did not cause pensions to be wiped out. Nobody lost their life savings because of Soros. In fact, it is quite the opposite. George Soros probably did more to create employment and economic growth in the UK during the early and mid-90s than any other single individual.

Conservatives have demonized George Soros so much and have developed such deep pathological biases against the man, they essentially argue for government intervention and that government knows better than the market. Conservatives shouldn't condemn Soros for breaking the Bank of England. Conservatives should applaud Soros. At least those conservatives who believe in free markets. Because if you believe in free markets, Soros unshackled the currency markets which allowed the pound to fall to its true market level.

A quick Google search would have shown that in fact, the British economy accelerated after Soros broke the Bank of England. You can see the graph here.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The pound was forced out of the ERM - the forerunner of the euro - by Soros in September 1992. GDP growth was as follows;

1991 -1.4%
1992 +0.1%
1993 +2.2%
1994 +4.3%

The pound was pegged within a band against the mark in what was known as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The peg was set through monetary policy via the Bank of England, i.e. the government's bank set the interest rate. The currency market did not trade freely. In fact, it was very much the opposite. The free market was not allowed to work as the British government kept the pound artificially strong.

To combat inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s - which got as high as 11% - the Bank of England jacked up interest rates to nearly 15%. This caused the British economy to grind to a halt as economic growth turned negative in 1991. The monetary policy worked as inflation fell to 3.5% by the summer of 1992. Here are the data sets for interest rates and inflation.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/c...011/cpi-and-rpi-detailed-reference-tables.xls
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNEROveCPdE410lbKccZSrg9pioyKA&cad=rja

However, interest rates were nearly 10% in the summer of 1992, meaning real rates of interest were 6.5%, which is extraordinarily tight. (In a normal environment, real interest rates are 2%-3%.) This was strangling the British economy. Interest rates should have been much lower. Soros knew it. If the Bank of England had lowered the Bank Rate - as it should have, given the economic fundamentals - then the pound would have declined below its lower band in the ERM. But the British government wanted to stay within the ERM. They wanted to save face. The pound was artificially high and kept high because the UK was in the ERM.

If you believe in the efficacy of markets, you knew this was simply untenable, no different than Greece's predicament in the eurozone today. So Soros - as he should have - bet heavily against the pound.

And the markets believed him. If you believe in markets, and if Soros had been wrong, the pound would have quickly risen after it fell out of the ERM. But that's not what happened, as you can see here.

Also, if Soros had been wrong, the British government could have maintained their high interest rates. But they did not. Instead, they slashed interest rates, knowing that the battle to keep the pound in the ERM was lost. No longer needing to keep interest rates high to defend the value of the pound, the Bank Rate was slashed from 9.875% in the summer of 1992 to 6.875% in November and eventually to 5.125% in 1994.

And what happened? Well, as conventional monetary theory would expect, the economy recovered. Monetary policy works with a lag of 12-24 months. Unemployment, which was 9.9% in September 1992, after having risen from 6.9% two years earlier, peaked a year later and was below 10% at the start of 1994, beginning a long, downward trek in unemployment for years thereafter.

You can see employment by downloading this table, which is table A02

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2011/table-a02.xls
Release Edition Reference Tables

The same came be said of the Asian Contagion in 1997. Politicians love to demonize outsiders for their woes, and the leaders of various SE Asian countries did just that as their economies collapsed in 1997 and 1998. Soros, who was very public in his attack on the British pound, denied any involvement in shorting the Asian currencies. In fact, at the time, he said he was slightly long Asian currencies. I don't know if that's true or not, but the simple fact is that like Britain five years earlier, the Asian economies had pegged their currencies, only this time to the dollar, which created enormous imbalances in the economies. It was only a matter of time - if you believe in free markets - before the system collapsed. And it did.

yeah, soros should be a hero of capitalism.

but what do you know,

california brat "did a paper" on george soros.

Wait....don't they ignore you because you speak the truth?

 

[L.K.Eder]

So, how did this multi-billionaire and self proclaimed philanthropist make his money? Wall Street. ( ) Yep, he was one of those evil hedge funders, and currency speculators. As a currency speculator, back in 1992, he became known in England as the 'man who broke the Bank of England'. So what? Big deal, right? He shorted the British pound by leveraging billions of pounds of financial bets. But.... he didn't just 'break' the Bank of England. He broke the British economy, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ordinary hard working Britons, who lost their homes, their jobs, their pensions and their life savings. Why? Because he could. Because making money was more important than ordinary, hard working people - albeit they were not Americans.

This is factually incorrect. He did not break the British economy. He did not cause people to lose their jobs. He did not cause pensions to be wiped out. Nobody lost their life savings because of Soros. In fact, it is quite the opposite. George Soros probably did more to create employment and economic growth in the UK during the early and mid-90s than any other single individual.

Conservatives have demonized George Soros so much and have developed such deep pathological biases against the man, they essentially argue for government intervention and that government knows better than the market. Conservatives shouldn't condemn Soros for breaking the Bank of England. Conservatives should applaud Soros. At least those conservatives who believe in free markets. Because if you believe in free markets, Soros unshackled the currency markets which allowed the pound to fall to its true market level.

A quick Google search would have shown that in fact, the British economy accelerated after Soros broke the Bank of England. You can see the graph here.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The pound was forced out of the ERM - the forerunner of the euro - by Soros in September 1992. GDP growth was as follows;

1991 -1.4%
1992 +0.1%
1993 +2.2%
1994 +4.3%

The pound was pegged within a band against the mark in what was known as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The peg was set through monetary policy via the Bank of England, i.e. the government's bank set the interest rate. If the government wanted a strong pound, it raised the interest rates. If it wanted a weak pound, it lowered interest rates. The pound was supposed to trade with a band of DM2.80-DM3.20. The currency market did not trade freely. In fact, it was very much the opposite. The free market was not allowed to work as the British government kept the pound artificially strong to keep it within the ERM.

To combat inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s - which got as high as 11% - the Bank of England jacked up interest rates to nearly 15%. This caused the British economy to grind to a halt as economic growth turned negative in 1991. The monetary policy worked as inflation fell to 3.5% by the summer of 1992. Here are the data sets for interest rates and inflation.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/c...011/cpi-and-rpi-detailed-reference-tables.xls
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNEROveCPdE410lbKccZSrg9pioyKA&cad=rja

However, interest rates were nearly 10% in the summer of 1992, meaning real rates of interest were 6.5%, which is extraordinarily tight. (In a normal environment, real interest rates are 2%-3%.) This was strangling the British economy. Interest rates should have been much lower. Soros knew it. If the Bank of England had lowered the Bank Rate - as it should have, given the economic fundamentals - then the pound would have declined below its lower band in the ERM. But the British government wanted to stay within the ERM. They wanted to save face. The pound was artificially high and kept high because the UK was in the ERM.

If you believe in the efficacy of markets, you knew this was simply untenable, no different than Greece's predicament in the eurozone today. So Soros - as he should have - bet heavily against the pound.

And the markets believed him. If you believe in markets, and if Soros had been wrong, the pound would have quickly risen after it fell out of the ERM. But that's not what happened, as you can see here.

Also, if Soros had been wrong, the British government could have maintained their high interest rates. But they did not. Instead, they slashed interest rates, knowing that the battle to keep the pound in the ERM was lost. No longer needing to keep interest rates high to defend the value of the pound, the Bank Rate was slashed from 9.875% in the summer of 1992 to 6.875% in November and eventually to 5.125% in 1994.

And what happened? Well, as conventional monetary theory would expect, the economy recovered. Monetary policy works with a lag of 12-24 months. Unemployment, which was 9.9% in September 1992, after having risen from 6.9% two years earlier, peaked a year later and was below 10% at the start of 1994, beginning a long, downward trek in unemployment for years thereafter.

You can see employment by downloading this table, which is table A02

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2011/table-a02.xls
Release Edition Reference Tables

The same came be said of the Asian Contagion in 1997. Politicians love to demonize outsiders for their woes, and the leaders of various SE Asian countries did just that as their economies collapsed in 1997 and 1998. Soros, who was very public in his attack on the British pound, denied any involvement in shorting the Asian currencies. In fact, at the time, he said he was slightly long Asian currencies. I don't know if that's true or not, but the simple fact is that like Britain five years earlier, the Asian economies had pegged their currencies, only this time to the dollar, which created enormous imbalances in the economies. It was only a matter of time - if you believe in free markets - before the system collapsed. And it did.

Thanks....I read that elsewhere. The pound rebounded stronger than ever. But wingnut fantasies die hard.

and if some capitalist would now do that to the dollar, the blame would fall on obama, not the capitalist.

right?

 

[Ravi]

He is known as the man who 'broke the bank of England'. He made $1b profit by manipulating the British economy.

So, yea, he is responsible for everything that happened to ordinary people in Britain. And a whole bunch of other countries too.

He's a liar, a thief, a con man, and scum.

If you believe that markets know better than the government, then it was the British government that was manipulating markets, not Soros. Soros unleashed the free market away from the grasp of the British government, causing interest rates to fall and growth and employment to rise.

Yep.

 

[BDBoop]

Naw Nazibitch..inbetween trolling and sucking dick for crack..you managed to get your head up long enough to see an interview with Soros..

Gotta love the irony.

Actually, it just happened to follow a program I was watching about the Eurozone debt crisis.

Gotta feel sorry for your pathetic whinging and, I presume, drunken blathering.

What's "whinging"..is that how people speak when their mouths come off a crack pipe?

English.


whinge/(h)winj/
Verb:
Complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.
Noun:
An act of complaining in such a way.

"Whine" is a synonym thereof.

 

[rdean]

Why does the right wing always insist they know who "left wing icons" are? I always have to go look up who they are talking about to figure out why they are an "icon".

 

[Ravi]

It's odd, isn't it.... how some people cannot separate rational thought from 'admiration'. It's no wonder the country is such a clusterfuck if this is the level of intellect of the average American.

CG, I like you, but I think you have fallen for the exact same thing with Soros. You are allowing the prejudices and biases of those who despise Soros's politics to colour your interpretation of events in which Soros was involved.

Actually, I'm not. Everything I say about Soros is based on my own study of the man. Unlike those who use the media to get their information, I tend to avoid the media reports about him. I've studied him for a long time. I have no idea what the 'talking heads' say about Soros - left or right - because I have no interest in their opinions. I have informed myself and I do not like what I have found.

The French got him bang to rights. Most Governments are afraid of him. But not the French.

Now, pig ignorant assholes can bitch and whine about me as an individual rather than having an honest discussion about the topic.... I don't care. You, I respect. But you need to look further into George. He is a dangerous man.... amoral and with a global agenda that does not suit this nation.

lol! You've studied him for a long time. Who are you, Goebbels?

Why do you hate Jews that survived the Holocaust?

 

[L.K.Eder]

This is factually incorrect. He did not break the British economy. He did not cause people to lose their jobs. He did not cause pensions to be wiped out. Nobody lost their life savings because of Soros. In fact, it is quite the opposite. George Soros probably did more to create employment and economic growth in the UK during the early and mid-90s than any other single individual.

Conservatives have demonized George Soros so much and have developed such deep pathological biases against the man, they essentially argue for government intervention and that government knows better than the market. Conservatives shouldn't condemn Soros for breaking the Bank of England. Conservatives should applaud Soros. At least those conservatives who believe in free markets. Because if you believe in free markets, Soros unshackled the currency markets which allowed the pound to fall to its true market level.

A quick Google search would have shown that in fact, the British economy accelerated after Soros broke the Bank of England. You can see the graph here.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The pound was forced out of the ERM - the forerunner of the euro - by Soros in September 1992. GDP growth was as follows;

1991 -1.4%
1992 +0.1%
1993 +2.2%
1994 +4.3%

The pound was pegged within a band against the mark in what was known as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The peg was set through monetary policy via the Bank of England, i.e. the government's bank set the interest rate. The currency market did not trade freely. In fact, it was very much the opposite. The free market was not allowed to work as the British government kept the pound artificially strong.

To combat inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s - which got as high as 11% - the Bank of England jacked up interest rates to nearly 15%. This caused the British economy to grind to a halt as economic growth turned negative in 1991. The monetary policy worked as inflation fell to 3.5% by the summer of 1992. Here are the data sets for interest rates and inflation.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/c...011/cpi-and-rpi-detailed-reference-tables.xls
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNEROveCPdE410lbKccZSrg9pioyKA&cad=rja

However, interest rates were nearly 10% in the summer of 1992, meaning real rates of interest were 6.5%, which is extraordinarily tight. (In a normal environment, real interest rates are 2%-3%.) This was strangling the British economy. Interest rates should have been much lower. Soros knew it. If the Bank of England had lowered the Bank Rate - as it should have, given the economic fundamentals - then the pound would have declined below its lower band in the ERM. But the British government wanted to stay within the ERM. They wanted to save face. The pound was artificially high and kept high because the UK was in the ERM.

If you believe in the efficacy of markets, you knew this was simply untenable, no different than Greece's predicament in the eurozone today. So Soros - as he should have - bet heavily against the pound.

And the markets believed him. If you believe in markets, and if Soros had been wrong, the pound would have quickly risen after it fell out of the ERM. But that's not what happened, as you can see here.

Also, if Soros had been wrong, the British government could have maintained their high interest rates. But they did not. Instead, they slashed interest rates, knowing that the battle to keep the pound in the ERM was lost. No longer needing to keep interest rates high to defend the value of the pound, the Bank Rate was slashed from 9.875% in the summer of 1992 to 6.875% in November and eventually to 5.125% in 1994.

And what happened? Well, as conventional monetary theory would expect, the economy recovered. Monetary policy works with a lag of 12-24 months. Unemployment, which was 9.9% in September 1992, after having risen from 6.9% two years earlier, peaked a year later and was below 10% at the start of 1994, beginning a long, downward trek in unemployment for years thereafter.

You can see employment by downloading this table, which is table A02

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2011/table-a02.xls
Release Edition Reference Tables

The same came be said of the Asian Contagion in 1997. Politicians love to demonize outsiders for their woes, and the leaders of various SE Asian countries did just that as their economies collapsed in 1997 and 1998. Soros, who was very public in his attack on the British pound, denied any involvement in shorting the Asian currencies. In fact, at the time, he said he was slightly long Asian currencies. I don't know if that's true or not, but the simple fact is that like Britain five years earlier, the Asian economies had pegged their currencies, only this time to the dollar, which created enormous imbalances in the economies. It was only a matter of time - if you believe in free markets - before the system collapsed. And it did.

yeah, soros should be a hero of capitalism.

but what do you know,

california brat "did a paper" on george soros.

Wait....don't they ignore you because you speak the truth?

they "ignore" me, because they realized they can not get into my pants, and that they will be mercilessly mocked and dissected any time they try to interact.

they sure are cowards.

but toro did all the work, i am just commenting on the failures.

 

[California Girl]

So, how did this multi-billionaire and self proclaimed philanthropist make his money? Wall Street. ( ) Yep, he was one of those evil hedge funders, and currency speculators. As a currency speculator, back in 1992, he became known in England as the 'man who broke the Bank of England'. So what? Big deal, right? He shorted the British pound by leveraging billions of pounds of financial bets. But.... he didn't just 'break' the Bank of England. He broke the British economy, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ordinary hard working Britons, who lost their homes, their jobs, their pensions and their life savings. Why? Because he could. Because making money was more important than ordinary, hard working people - albeit they were not Americans.

This is factually incorrect. He did not break the British economy. He did not cause people to lose their jobs. He did not cause pensions to be wiped out. Nobody lost their life savings because of Soros. In fact, it is quite the opposite. George Soros probably did more to create employment and economic growth in the UK during the early and mid-90s than any other single individual.

Conservatives have demonized George Soros so much and have developed such deep pathological biases against the man, they essentially argue for government intervention and that government knows better than the market. Conservatives shouldn't condemn Soros for breaking the Bank of England. Conservatives should applaud Soros. At least those conservatives who believe in free markets. Because if you believe in free markets, Soros unshackled the currency markets which allowed the pound to fall to its true market level.

A quick Google search would have shown that in fact, the British economy accelerated after Soros broke the Bank of England. You can see the graph here.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The pound was forced out of the ERM - the forerunner of the euro - by Soros in September 1992. GDP growth was as follows;

1991 -1.4%
1992 +0.1%
1993 +2.2%
1994 +4.3%

The pound was pegged within a band against the mark in what was known as the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The peg was set through monetary policy via the Bank of England, i.e. the government's bank set the interest rate. If the government wanted a strong pound, it raised the interest rates. If it wanted a weak pound, it lowered interest rates. The pound was supposed to trade with a band of DM2.80-DM3.20. The currency market did not trade freely. In fact, it was very much the opposite. The free market was not allowed to work as the British government kept the pound artificially strong to keep it within the ERM.

To combat inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s - which got as high as 11% - the Bank of England jacked up interest rates to nearly 15%. This caused the British economy to grind to a halt as economic growth turned negative in 1991. The monetary policy worked as inflation fell to 3.5% by the summer of 1992. Here are the data sets for interest rates and inflation.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/c...011/cpi-and-rpi-detailed-reference-tables.xls
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...sg=AFQjCNEROveCPdE410lbKccZSrg9pioyKA&cad=rja

However, interest rates were nearly 10% in the summer of 1992, meaning real rates of interest were 6.5%, which is extraordinarily tight. (In a normal environment, real interest rates are 2%-3%.) This was strangling the British economy. Interest rates should have been much lower. Soros knew it. If the Bank of England had lowered the Bank Rate - as it should have, given the economic fundamentals - then the pound would have declined below its lower band in the ERM. But the British government wanted to stay within the ERM. They wanted to save face. The pound was artificially high and kept high because the UK was in the ERM.

If you believe in the efficacy of markets, you knew this was simply untenable, no different than Greece's predicament in the eurozone today. So Soros - as he should have - bet heavily against the pound.

And the markets believed him. If you believe in markets, and if Soros had been wrong, the pound would have quickly risen after it fell out of the ERM. But that's not what happened, as you can see here.

Also, if Soros had been wrong, the British government could have maintained their high interest rates. But they did not. Instead, they slashed interest rates, knowing that the battle to keep the pound in the ERM was lost. No longer needing to keep interest rates high to defend the value of the pound, the Bank Rate was slashed from 9.875% in the summer of 1992 to 6.875% in November and eventually to 5.125% in 1994.

And what happened? Well, as conventional monetary theory would expect, the economy recovered. Monetary policy works with a lag of 12-24 months. Unemployment, which was 9.9% in September 1992, after having risen from 6.9% two years earlier, peaked a year later and was below 10% at the start of 1994, beginning a long, downward trek in unemployment for years thereafter.

You can see employment by downloading this table, which is table A02

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2011/table-a02.xls
Release Edition Reference Tables

The same came be said of the Asian Contagion in 1997. Politicians love to demonize outsiders for their woes, and the leaders of various SE Asian countries did just that as their economies collapsed in 1997 and 1998. Soros, who was very public in his attack on the British pound, denied any involvement in shorting the Asian currencies. In fact, at the time, he said he was slightly long Asian currencies. I don't know if that's true or not, but the simple fact is that like Britain five years earlier, the Asian economies had pegged their currencies, only this time to the dollar, which created enormous imbalances in the economies. It was only a matter of time - if you believe in free markets - before the system collapsed. And it did.

Thanks....I read that elsewhere. The pound rebounded stronger than ever. But wingnut fantasies die hard.

The pound recovered. Those individuals who lost their life savings and their pensions... not so much. But trust you to completely miss that point.

But that part about you having read that... that made me laugh. Yea, course you did. You just didn't post it.

Facts remain.... I didn't talk about the pound.... that was never the issue. The issue was... and remains.... he damaged the lives of ordinary people all over the world... and he did it to make money.

Icon of the left. Amoral bastard.

 

[Ravi]

CG, I like you, but I think you have fallen for the exact same thing with Soros. You are allowing the prejudices and biases of those who despise Soros's politics to colour your interpretation of events in which Soros was involved.

Actually, I'm not. Everything I say about Soros is based on my own study of the man. Unlike those who use the media to get their information, I tend to avoid the media reports about him. I've studied him for a long time. I have no idea what the 'talking heads' say about Soros - left or right - because I have no interest in their opinions. I have informed myself and I do not like what I have found.

The French got him bang to rights. Most Governments are afraid of him. But not the French.

Now, pig ignorant assholes can bitch and whine about me as an individual rather than having an honest discussion about the topic.... I don't care. You, I respect. But you need to look further into George. He is a dangerous man.... amoral and with a global agenda that does not suit this nation.

I'm a trader and an investor. I've done a lot of study of economic and financial market history. I'm a boring man. It's all I do. It's my formal education, and it is what I've done for the past 20 years of my career. I left living in England in 1991 just before it happened. Margaret Thatcher is my hero. I lived in Finchley. (Sadly, I was there when she drove away from Parliament after resigning. )

I've studied this. I followed it closely when it happened. And the interpretation you have given, at least regarding the Bank of England and the British economy, is incorrect.

You aren't the least bit boring.

 

[California Girl]

CG, I like you, but I think you have fallen for the exact same thing with Soros. You are allowing the prejudices and biases of those who despise Soros's politics to colour your interpretation of events in which Soros was involved.

Actually, I'm not. Everything I say about Soros is based on my own study of the man. Unlike those who use the media to get their information, I tend to avoid the media reports about him. I've studied him for a long time. I have no idea what the 'talking heads' say about Soros - left or right - because I have no interest in their opinions. I have informed myself and I do not like what I have found.

The French got him bang to rights. Most Governments are afraid of him. But not the French.

Now, pig ignorant assholes can bitch and whine about me as an individual rather than having an honest discussion about the topic.... I don't care. You, I respect. But you need to look further into George. He is a dangerous man.... amoral and with a global agenda that does not suit this nation.

lol! You've studied him for a long time. Who are you, Goebbels?

Why do you hate Jews that survived the Holocaust?

I expect that kind of pathetic bullshit from lowlifes like shallow. Not from you. It's beneath you to say such things, Ravi. We should be able to discuss - or even mock each other - without lowering ourselves to mocking the victims of the Holocaust for point scoring. Shame on you.