Lets me tell you something about Soros; He will make comments when he knows he is right, he has already taken a big position in the mkts & by commenting he is hoping that the masses out there will believe him & thereby taking appropriate actions to prove him right....ever heard about his theory called "perception before reality" ?? What a con-man.. Nick tan
No it wasn't. He doesn't give American's enough credit. Nobody miscontrued the "war on poverty" or the "war on drugs" to mean regiments of soldiers diving into foxholes, either. The "war on terror" concept is valid, that terror is something we don't want and will work to prevent. If brutal accuracy and trancparency in naming foreign policy objectives were the rule and not the exception, our current state would be "defending against and dismantling through military, diplomatic , and psychological means violent fundamentalist Islam," which hardly rolls of the tongue. Again, the phrase "war on xyz" simply means "concerted effort to prevent xyz." The alternative, in the case of terrorism, is what? He mentions the UK MI6 breakup of the recent airline plot as a laudable alternative to our viscious "war on terror"--yet it was US eavesdropping that tipped off the UK. An odd and patently contradictory example to pick. An abstraction? Like numbers, math, money, and Soros' conviction for insider trading? Human life revolves around abstraction, and yes, "terrorism" is an abstraction. A more accurate statement would be that "terror" is a euphamism for a particularly virulent politico-religious philosophy, which goes largely unnamed to minimize offending 1.2B people. Of course it has. That's why the fascistic government censors stopped the WSJ from publishing Soros' criticism. Yes, our misperception of reality, namely the Bush admin's response to 911, precipitated events such as the WTC bombing, the Cole, etc, which predated the administration itself. Utter nonsense.
You wrote a fairly detailed post, but instead of addressing Soros' major points you seem to be delving into semantics and trivial lanes, as if you are blinded by brilliance of your own ability to focus on details. Please refute the major points of his article and his conclusion. In short, they appear to be that: (please assume that war = "war" and terrorists = "terrorists". Also please assume that the war in its current form began on september 11th, 2001) The war on terror is self defeating because: The war in its current form is creating support for the terrorists via the deaths of many innocent civilians The misapplication of the word terror has made it impossible to deal with any of the conditions that justify the existence of terrorist organizations to those who support those orgsanizations The war in its current form is actually increasing the terrorist threat, rather than reducing it. The war in its current form is isolating America in the eyes of the world and weakening our "goodwill" on a global basis (apply the accounting definition of goodwill as a parallel analogy to international diplomacy) These factors taken together guarantee that the war in its current form will not reduce the global terror threat, but rather increase it. In addition, the war on terror in its current form will only destabilize the globe, rather than stabilize it. Our current policies are escalating the cycle of violence, rather than reducing it. These policies are also increasing the potential for greater and more widespread violence in the near, intermediate and long term. Our current policies are also changing the dynamics of the relationsyhip between the executive branch of the American government and its 375 million constituents in a truly powerful and foreboding way Anyone who follows international current events and has a solid grounding in world history would generally agree with these claims, since they are claims based on actual events and population-sampling studies over the past 5 years. You seem to disagree based on a bias and your own opinion. Do you trade with a bias and base your trading decisions on opinion while ignoring fundamental and techincal analysis? Simple observation and objective analysis proves all of these claims correct. Please refute them with factual observations that appeal to logic and rationale, rather than opinion.
thread is morphing from Economics to political which is fine but My initial question on Soros' s statement which I believe infers that there will be strong fallout from the US RE market heading south. He is not restating the obvious which is that the stocks in the group have gone deeply south but there may be strong ramifications with a debt based economy. Right now Bkx is close to an all time high 113 ish, while the FXE is also knocking on all time high as the dollar devalues, wouldn't bad loans start to show up in the banks? Is the dollar already factoring in this?
oooops, if i was u i would immediately delete this post...maybe u still in time to save your virtual face.
In 1989 we purchased a home in the DC area - as a place to live 1st, as an investment 2nd. We paid $189900. Until this time houses were appreciating at a respectable/tolerable 4 - 6% per year. By 1991 the value of our particular home in our area, had fallen to $139000 give or take a few $1000. The values remained extremely soft until around 2000, when they crept back up to $145000; 2001 $180000; 2002 $210000; 2003 $305000 (yes, I have all the appraisals); 2004 $367000; 2005 $460000. Since the Feds kept raising the discount rate we sold in 2005 to an investor for $450000 - banked the cash and moved to an upper class rental. The home now is appraised at $340000 and up for sale at $350000 - the investor lost, we won, SORRY but thats life. Look at the history - its really very simple relevant to home prices; 2 things have played THE role in the housing boom and bust 1st Tax status (also changed in 1990) and Mortgage costs; PERIOD As for investing, if a person/couple does not have the spare cash, or precieves that they must horde their cash to survive, they simply will not invest or spend on things other than those items they feel they need. Cash transfer slows, the economy slows, the speculators and investors panick and dump their positions, and all things grind down to a slow crawl. The George Soro's folks then can cherry pick investment for pennies on the dollar and wait for the next boom (or create a false one by high level spot buying). The traders make money anyway. Regards
Cash transfer slows, the economy slows, the speculators and investors panick and dump their positions, and all things grind down to a slow crawl. Fed lowers rates to bail out banks..... dollars tanks and we can continue to do this forever .... Wait a minute, Fed raised rates 17 times dollar still tanks, hmmm now what :eek: :eek: :eek: Gold or Goldilocks
Exactly. Not to mention the reflexive action of increased values of comps (resulting from increased prices that were driven by cheap money, tax changes, etc.) for other homes being purchased. It's really all one big reflexive episode.