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I am for maximum supervision and minimum regulation.
We [at Soros Fund Management] use options and more exotic derivatives sparingly. We try to catch new trends early and in later stages we try to catch trend reversals. Therefore, we tend to stabilize rather than destabilize the market. We are not doing this as a public service. It is our style of making money.
Every bubble consists of a trend that can be observed in the real world and a misconception relating to that trend. The two elements interact with each other in a reflexive manner.
The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).
The only thing that could hurt me is if my success encouraged me to return to my childhood fantasies of omnipotence - but that is not likely to happen as long as I remain engaged in the financial markets, because they constantly remind me of my limitations.
It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).
Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.
I would be lying, however, if I claimed that I could always formulate worthwhile hypotheses on the basis of my theoretical framework. Sometimes there were no reflexive processes to be found; sometimes I failed to find them; and, what was the most painful of all, sometimes I got them wrong. One way or another, I often invested without a worthwhile hypothesis and my activities were not very different from a random walk.
Taking this view, it is possible to see financial markets as a laboratory for testing hypotheses, albeit not strictly scientific ones. The truth is, successful investing is a kind of alchemy.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. [This idea] happens to coincide with the prevailing opinion in the world. And I think that's rather shocking for Americans to hear.
Money values do not simply mirror the state of affairs in the real world; valuation is a positive act that makes an impact on the course of events. Monetary and real phenomena are connected in a reflexive fashion; that is, they influence each other mutually. The reflexive relationship manifests itself most clearly in the use and abuse of credit.
When interest rates are low we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing at the moment. The ultimate asset bubble is gold.
As I discovered, there is a great deal of similarity between a boom-bust process in the financial markets and the rise and fall of the Soviet system.
If we care about universal principles such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law, we cannot leave them to the care of market forces; we must establish some other institutions to safeguard them.
Whenever there is a conflict between universal principles and self-interest, self-interest is likely to prevail.
We can speak of the triumph of capitalism in the world, but we cannot yet speak about the triumph of democracy. There is a serious mismatch between the political and the economic conditions that prevail in the world today.
Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention, and I wouldn't underestimate the value of that. But they're not designed to take care of social needs.
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
The world is looking to us for leadership. We have provided it in the past; the main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong in the world today is that we are not providing it in the present.
When money is free, the rational lender will keep on lending until there is no one else to lend to.
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