The Impeachment Hearing Room: George Soros : Hero On The Left; Vilified Villain On The Right, Demonized Because How You Be That Wealthy And Not Be A Fascist Republican?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

George Soros : Hero On The Left; Vilified Villain On The Right, Demonized Because How You Be That Wealthy And Not Be A Fascist Republican?

Posted by ed. dickau at 7:37 AM

George Soros : Hero On The Left; Vilified Villain On The Right, Demonized Because How You Be That Wealthy And Not Be A Fascist Republican?

George Soros is a Hungarian-born American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist.^[3] He is also one of the most misunderstood and maligned individuals in America. Considered an absolute traitor on the rights because of advocacy of liberal causes and “open societies” the attacks upon his character, (characteristic character assassination), have created a cloud over his head in many American minds, and they don’t know why; it’s just a feeling, something they have heard, an impression picked up somewhere along the way. That is the real danger in long term “character assassination”; one is guilty of something for sure but even those who should be praising his world-wide efforts are ill-at-ease with his very name.

The problem for the right that has sent them in relentless demonization of Soros is the fact that here is a self-made man with a net worth of $90 Billion (+) who has repeatedly opposed the policies and initiatives, the organizations, and the Presidential offerings of the Right. To them that is treason.

He has supported efforts abroad in direct opposition to American policies, and quite frankly those instances demonstrate a greater cultural understanding of the nations and movements he has supported/aided.

According to his own website, Soros claims his support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, as well as the Czechoslovak human rights organization Charter 77, contributed to ending Soviet Union political dominance in those countries.^[4] His funding and organization of Georgia's Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been "greatly exaggerated." In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush's bid for re-election in 2004. On BookTV, November 12, 2007, he said that he supports Barack Obama for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 election.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in 2003 in the foreword of Soros' book The Alchemy of Finance:

George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.

Yes that is treason on the right!

Out spoken to say the least he provokes such commentary as follows from the right: “February 2, 2007 -- SEN. Barack Obama might want to tell George Soros to shut up, now that the Hungarian-born billionaire has equated the George W. Bush administration with the Third Reich. Soros, who spent $26 million trying to beat Bush two years ago, is a key supporter of the media-darling Illinois Democrat's presidential campaign. But last week at Davos, Soros made folks like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean Penn look downright patriotic.

After asserting that the United States is recognizing the error it made in Iraq, Soros said, "To what extent it recognizes the mistake will determine its future." He went on to say that Turkey and Japan are still hurt by a reluctance to admit to dark parts of their history, and contrasted that reluctance to Germany's rejection of its Nazi-era past. "America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany," Soros said. "We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process." Soros spokesman Michael Vachon told Page Six: "There is nothing unpatriotic about demanding accountability from the president. Those responsible for taking America into this needless war should do us all a favor and retire from public office."

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DuafAqAHrc )

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Neil Cavuto's interview of George Soros Part 2

Soros’ charitable giving infuriates many, but his take on the financial crisis has been sound. No fan of Paulson, weeks ago he said Paulson cannot be allowed a blank cheque. In the Financial Times today: How to capitalise the banks and save finance.

A Danish fix for the US mortgage crisis

By George Soros

Published: August 11 2008 19:21 | Last updated: August 11 2008 19:21

The recent compromise struck between the Treasury and Democrats in Congress on the fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage guarantors, constitutes the worst of all possible worlds. The Treasury offered a blank cheque to come to the rescue, if necessary, but the managements of both companies were kept in place. They know that their survival depends on not drawing on that blank cheque. They will therefore do everything in their power to reduce the need for any new equity capital that would be dilutive. In short, as privately owned but undercapitalized financial institutions, the GSEs cannot fulfill their stated mission of providing stability, liquidity and affordability to the nation’s housing finance system.

In presentations to investors, which followed big quarterly losses, the GSEs said they would curtail purchases of mortgages and might shrink their holdings to preserve capital. They highlighted that fees from their insurance guarantee business had nearly doubled. They also improved the quality of new loans by focusing on borrowers with higher-quality credit, who put down greater down payments. This means that the GSEs have significantly increased the cost of mortgages and tightened lending standards.

The problems in the banking system have left the two GSEs as the only game in town in the mortgage market. Their market share of new mortgages has doubled over the past year and is now close to 80 per cent. Much of the balance is accounted for by the Federal Housing Administration, a fully guaranteed government agency. As the two companies fight for survival and try to reduce their need for new capital, the availability and cost of mortgages in the US suffer. Coming at a time when the supply of houses is swollen by a rising tide of foreclosures, this is a recipe for disaster. House prices have already fallen sharply and will continue to fall unless mortgages are made available on more favorable terms to a broader group of people.

This compromise, or stalemate, practically ensures that house prices will overshoot on the downside. That, in turn, renders the policies of the GSEs self-defeating as lower house prices increase their losses and push them further into insolvency. The GSE crisis has merely been postponed, at a cost of making the housing crisis more severe.

Confidence in GSE-backed bonds has been shaken. The stocks remain under pressure. Markets are forcing officials to come up with a better solution. We need to recognize that the business model of the GSEs is fatally flawed. They are public/private partnerships in which the risks are borne by the public sector while profits accrue to the private sector: management and shareholders. The companies have been plagued by accounting problems and other irregularities; their managements have spent enormous sums lobbying Capitol Hill. This is not a business model that deserves to be perpetuated.

Fortunately, alternatives are available. Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, has suggested the use of covered bonds, a mortgage-financing vehicle popular in Europe. I would recommend the system of mortgage credit used in Denmark, where loan-to-value ratios and underwriting standards are strictly enforced by a single, strong regulator. These mortgages are transformed into instantly tradable bonds. Cover for the bonds is provided by both the mortgages and the credit of the financial institutions issuing them. The mortgages remain on the balance sheets of the issuers, eliminating the moral hazard inherent in the US system, which is based on earning fees from selling them on to the market.

The standardization of mortgages in the Danish system promotes transparency and liquidity. Householders can prepay their mortgages at any time by buying the bonds. Since house values and bond prices tend to move in unison this arrangement reduces the danger of householders’ equity falling into negative territory. For the issuing banks, owning these bonds carries lower capital requirements so the bonds sell at a premium to ordinary covered bonds. This system has survived and provided affordable home mortgages since its creation shortly after the great Copenhagen fire of 1795.

I pioneered the introduction of the Danish system in Mexico with the support of Paul O’Neill, when he was Treasury secretary. With modification, it offers a long-term solution to providing affordable mortgages in the US.

The writer, author of The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, is chairman of Soros Fund Management, which has held and continues to hold short positions in GSEs

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Billionaire businessman George Soros lobbed criticism Sunday at the US administration's "ill-conceived" handling of the global banking crisis, reserving especially harsh words for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

"This 700 billion dollar plan, if it had been better constructed, if they had thought about it earlier, if they would deal with the housing situation -- the damage would be less," Soros told CNN in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"The Paulson plan was ill-conceived," he said.

"It was basically the same kind of financial engineering that got us into the trouble that they wanted to use for getting us out of it. And it was just the wrong thing," he said.

The legendary financier added: "The market is now collapsing. He just is not able to ... come to terms to what needs to be done."

Soros, one of the world's richest men, also had criticism for the overindulgence of US consumers.

"We have gotten into the habit of consuming six to seven percent more than we are producing. And that game is finished. That was part of the bubble," he said.

"America, as the center of the globalized financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. You know, China was buying government bonds.

"This is now over. The game is out," he said, adding that the time has come for "a very serious adjustment" in Americans' consumption habits.

A Hungarian-born US citizen and fabled hedge fund manager, Soros has been active in US politics and is a fervent backer of Barack Obama for the US presidency, after backing Democratic Senator John Kerry for the White House in 2004.

Famous for speculating against the British pound in 1992, he is chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute.

George Soros on the financial sword of Damocles

Fri, 04/04/2008 - 1:25pm

George Soros, speaking in a conference call hosted by the New America Foundation today, had some interesting remarks about the state of the world economy. Given that the first sentence of his new book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means, reads: "We are in the midst of a financial crisis the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s," I was prepared to hear some dire predictions about the road ahead.

Instead, on a number of occasions throughout the call, Soros stated that he believes the "most acute phase of the crisis is now over," and that the markets are breathing a sigh of relief following the Bear Stearns bailout. Of course, that's not to say that the fallout is over just yet, or that the boom-bust cycle that has recurred consistently since markets began to become unregulated will cease.

Soros was keen to note that the "scariest unregulated market" now is the credit default swap market, with outstanding contracts amounting to $45 trillion today. (Credit default swaps are a form of contract insurance that has been widely sold by hedge funds.) Writing in the Financial Times yesterday and repeating the warning today, Soros says, "The [CDS] market is totally unregulated and those who hold the contracts do not know whether their counterparties have adequately protected themselves.

If and when defaults occur, some of the counterparties are likely to prove unable to fulfill their obligations. This prospect hangs over the financial markets like a sword of Damocles that is bound to fall." It will cause what will essentially amount to banks running on banks. The solution, Soros argues, is to urgently set up a clearinghouse or exchange where the the deals can be registered and settled. Without this type of step, the "entire banking system [will remain] weighed down with bad assets" and stay paralyzed. Even then, there is still little hope that this fallout can play out without significant effects on the real economy.

Soros's concerns extend well beyond the current financial crisis -- although he did mention that it was this crisis that forced him out of retirement. His argument is philosophical and is explained thoroughly in his fascinating new book. But the crux of it is that the idea that markets fall into equilibrium like events in the natural world is a complete myth; humans can't know "truth" and thus expectations and human actions inevitably change how the system functions, which can -- and does (hence boom-bust cycles) -- lead to non-equilibrium outcomes. The solution is finding a balance between regulation and unfettered markets. Soros is highly critical of market fundamentalism, and condemned regulators for failing to do their jobs. They have the tools, he said, but didn't use them. He believes the two Democratic presidential hopefuls are on the right track with dealing with the financial mess and re-regulation, but was careful to highlight the dangers of going to extremes either way.

One of the most interesting points Soros made was his take on the the coming fuel for the global economy:

We've had the American consumer acting as the motor of the world economy and that is what is coming to an end... [We] need a new motor. And I believe we have a tremenous challenge with global warming, where you need to make tremendous investment to reduce carbon emissions... The investments necessary to avoid global warming could replace the excess consumption by the U.S. consumer as the motor of the world economy.

Although Soros certainly didn't try to downplay the seriousness of the current crisis, I'm still left feeling slightly hopeful that the economy will improve and things could get better soon(ish). And I'm now certainly keen to buy those stocks in renewable energy companies.

Soros’ charitable giving infuriates many

Open Society Institute

Open Society Institute Awards Millions to Expand Drug and Alcohol Treatment
Press Release
October 7, 2008
OSI announces the selection of eight grantee organizations working to increase the availability of resources for the delivery of high-quality treatment for drug and alcohol addiction for all who need it. more

Announcing the First Open Society Fellows
September 23, 2008
New fellows' projects include an investigative news blog in Colombia, a book about HIV/AIDS in South Africa and Russia, a look at how authoritarian regimes exploit the Internet, and a study of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's activities in Central Asia. more

OSI Stories: Young Roma Activists Target Education

September 10, 2008
With OSI support, members of a new generation of Roma leaders are pressing European governments to meet their commitments to improve education. more

Open Society Institute Awards Millions to Expand Drug and Alcohol Treatment

Press Release
October 7, 2008
OSI announces the selection of eight grantee organizations working to increase the availability of resources for the delivery of high-quality treatment for drug and alcohol addiction for all who need it. more--OSI Forum: A Life in Transition
OSI-New York
September 30, 2008
AUDIO

OSI presented a conversation with Alex Boraine, author of A Life in Transition, an insider's account of important institutions and events in South African history. more

George Soros
September 16, 2008
The European Union's greatest need for improvement is in its treatment of the Roma minority, said OSI Chairman George Soros in this keynote address to the EU Roma Summit in Brussels. more

OSI Stories: Young Roma Activists Target Education
September 10, 2008
With OSI support, members of a new generation of Roma leaders are pressing European governments to meet their commitments to improve education. more—

OSI-Supported National Religious Campaign Seeks Torture Ban
September 10, 2008
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is encouraging American congregations to display a banner calling for the president to issue an executive order banning torture. more

OSI Fellow's Book Documents Continued Impact of Hurricane Katrina
August 15, 2008
Still Here: Stories After Katrina by photographer Joseph Rodríguez documents the ongoing expressions of hope, perseverance, and suffering in communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. more—

Another Victory for Free Speech and Public Health
August 8, 2008
In a case brought by the Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International, a federal judge has extended free speech protection to a broad range of groups working to combat the AIDS epidemic. more

more news & announcements

AND THE RIGHT DOESN"T LIKE A SINGLE ONE OF THESE:

Soros foundations have had a hand in funding a host of organizations, including the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the National Organization for Women; Feminist Majority; the American Civil Liberties Union; People for the American Way; Alliance for Justice; NARAL Pro-Choice America; America Coming Together; the Center for American Progress; Campaign for America's Future; Amnesty International; the Sentencing Project; theCenter for Community Change; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Human Rights Watch; the Prison Moratorium Project; the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; the National Lawyers Guild; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Coalition for an International Criminal Court; The American Prospect; MoveOn.org; Planned Parenthood; the Nation Institute; the Brennan Center for Justice; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the National Security Archive Fund; the Pacifica Foundation; Physicians for Human Rights; the Proteus Fund; the Public Citizen Foundation; the Urban Institute; the American Friends Service Committee; Catholics for a Free Choice;Human Rights First; the Independent Media Institute; MADRE; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Immigration Law Center; the National Immigration Forum; the National Council of La Raza; the American Immigration Law Foundation; the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee; and the Peace and Security Funders Group.