Fisking the Anti-Christ, George Soros

The Financial Times has an article online today by noted America hater George Soros. In it, Soros, far from seeming knowledgeable about finance, pens a rambling, incoherent analysis of our current financial problems, in which he no doubt played a part. As usual, when it comes to our enemies, and make no mistake, Mr. Soros falls into that category, expect confusion and misleading statements.

America needs stimulus not virtue is the title, and even that is misleading. America is in dire need of virtue, particularly from the people it sends to Washington to represent her. In recent years, these people have said one thing in order to get themselves elected and abandoned their promises once they arrive. So strong is the allure of power that precious few can resist its siren call.

But I digress.

Soros begins with a falsehood and proceeds downhill from there.

The Obama administration’s insistence on fiscal rectitude is dictated not by financial necessity but by political considerations.

There is no insistence on any kind of fiscal decency, as his goal is clearly to employ the Cloward-Piven strategy of placing so many demands on “the system” that it becomes incapable of sustaining itself and collapses under its own weight in order to foment political revolution. The massive debt he and his corrupt “progressive” enablers in Congress have engineered is planned and well thought out.

The US is not in the position of Europe’s heavily indebted countries, which must pay hefty premiums over the price at which Germany can borrow.

Really George? In case you missed it, we’re in jeopardy of losing our AAA credit rating. Try again.

President Barack Obama is under political pressure. Americans are deeply troubled by the accumulation of public debt.

You’re getting warm there, George. We know that Washington’s balance sheet is just like the one we have to balance at home every month. Washington’s just has more zeros. A lot more zeros. And deficit spending makes about as much sense in Washington as it does for us, which is none.

The Republican opposition has been extremely successful in blaming the crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession and high unemployment on government ineptitude. But the crash of 2008 was primarily a failure of the private sector. US (and other) regulators should be faulted for failing to regulate.

Not so fast there, Georgie. Here’s what really happened.

The lending standards for home mortgage loans changed substantially beginning in the mid-1990s. The looser lending standards did not just happen. They were the result of federal policy designed to promote more home ownership among households with incomes below the median. While home ownership is a worthy goal, it was not pursued directly through transparent budget allocations and subsidies to homebuyers. Instead, the federal government imposed a complex set of regulations and mandates that forced various lending institutions to extend more loans to low- and moderate-income households. In order to meet these mandates, lending standards had to be reduced. By the early years of the 21st century, it was possible to borrow more (relative to your income) and purchase a house or condo with a lower down payment than was the case a decade earlier.

George, in the future, please try to keep your facts straight. The mortgage meltdown was caused as a direct result of government regulations, (particularly the Community Redevelopment Act, as rewritten by Clinton) not the lack of them. Lenders were following the law, as they must.

I believe there is a strong case for further stimulus. Admittedly, consumption cannot be sustained indefinitely by running up the national debt. The imbalance between consumption and investment must be corrected. But to cut government spending at a time of large-scale unemployment would be to ignore the lessons of history.

I believe that we need a stimulus, but not the kind you’re talking about. We now know that Obama’s Stimulus was a huge mistake, one that ran our deficit through the roof with no positive effect on unemployment, or GDP, or anything else except the special interests who received lump sums of cash.

And if anyone is ignoring the lesson of history, it would be your puppet Obama. Many Americans remember how we pulled out of the last prolonged recession in the late ‘70’s: it was Ronald Reagan’s stimulus of the private sector that created the largest peace-time expansion of our economy is history, one that lasted until “progressives” infested the Republican Party and began their long, slow march to dismantle the economy again.

But we can’t blame you guys, it’s what you do. Your own history in manipulating world markets is well documented, and your penchant for causing financial harm to innocent citizens the world over is well known by those of us who follow these things. We also know, by your own words and actions, that nothing would make you any happier than to bring America to its knees as witnessed by your founding and funding of the various extreme left-wing groups like Media Matters, Think Progress, and MoveOn.org.

The obvious solution is to distinguish between investments and current consumption, and increase the former while reducing the latter. But that seems politically untenable. Most Americans are convinced that government is incapable of managing investments aimed at improving the country’s physical and human capital.

Actually, I’ll give you credit for getting that one right. Americans see massive fraud and waste and accurately surmise that government in incapable of “managing investments”, especially when we see  $800K of our tax dollars going to Africa to teach men to wash their genitals after sex. If that doesn’t improve the country’s physical and human capital, I don’t know what does.
Oh, sorry, did I interrupt your insanity? Pardon me, do continue, George.

Again, this belief is not without justification: a quarter-century of calling the government bad has resulted in bad government. But the argument that stimulus spending is inevitably wasted is patently false: the New Deal produced the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Triborough Bridge in New York and many other public utilities still in use today.

Um, no George. I could call the sky brown with pink polka-dots for twenty-five years and that wouldn’t make it so. When government actually is bad, and people have been noticing for twenty-five years, that’s something altogether different. And your observations that previous “stimuli” have resulted in such things as the TVA bring up a very salient point: that was then, this is now. There is no such achievement to point to as a success from Obama’s Stimulus plan. The only bridge that has been built is the one to our ruin. But the signs are really pretty.


Soros concludes by giving us his plan for our demise and his profit. After all, his track record shows that he is very good at manipulating currencies for his benefit always at the expense of someone else.

…but the Obama administration’s stated goal of halving the budget deficit by 2013 while the economy is operating far below capacity is not one of them. Investing in infrastructure and education makes more sense. So does engineering a moderate rate of inflation by depreciating the dollar against the renminbi.

Really? I don’t think the word “investing” means what you think it means, especially when it comes to spending our tax dollars. Back when we had a roaring economy, those “investments” were called taxes, and we paid them so we could have effective schools and sound roads and bridges. And inflation might help you, but you’d be the only one. Of course, those on fixed incomes would be harmed the most, but we know that you don’t care as long as you make your precious money. Funny how, when Obama rails against the "evil rich", he doesn't mean you.

George, you’ve made your fortune. Now please take your bazillions, go buy an island somewhere, establish whatever type of government that pleases you and your Jesus complex, and kindly leave us alone.

Forever.