From: http://www.newsweek.com/id/219720
Now financier George Soros is announcing a $50 million effort to speed things along. This week Soros is gathering some of the leading practitioners of the market-skeptic school, who were marginalized during the era of "free-market fundamentalism," among them Nobelists Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Sir James Mirrlees. He's also creating an "Institute for New Economic Thinking" to make research grants, convene symposiums, and establish a journal, all in an effort to take back the economics profession from the champions of free-market zealotry who have dominated it for decades, and to correct the failures of decades of market deregulation. Soros hopes matching funds will bring the total endowment up to $200 million. "Economics has failed not only to predict and explain what happened but has also failed to protect society," says Robert Johnson, a former managing director at Soros Fund Management, who will direct the new institute. "That's what the crisis revealed. The paradigm has failed. There is no guidance."
My favorite online shop: www.cafepress.com/libertyphile
Daniel:"Economics has failed not only to predict and explain what happened but has also failed to protect society,"
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." ~Dream
All the statists and Keynesians will look up and shout "Save Us!" and I'll wisper "No."
$50 million to stimulate our economy
/ Dreams of Billionaires sending millions to the LvMI.
Someone send him Inclined to Liberty.
I love this. It is a rich guy thinking he can change reality simply by getting enough expert opinions against it. It is exactly what the Global Warming Crowd is is trying to do. They only have one problem: REALITY FIGHTS BACK!!!!! Think back to the movie Commando when Arnold (Once Great Actor turned evil bureaucrat) holds the guy over the cliff and says "Your biggest problem is gravity..." Why, because when he drops the bad guy, the guy is not going to fall up and will accelerate downward until he reaches terminal velocity or hits, either way he will be going fast enough so the impact kills him. Same here. People can wish that creating more money makes society wealthier or that government stealing from productive citizens and giving money to support "Alternative Energy" will create jobs, but it will not.
What a waste of $50 million.
Mises Community Natural Rights Discussion Group
Daniel:Now financier George Soros is announcing a $50 million effort to speed things along. This week Soros is gathering some of the leading practitioners of the market-skeptic school, who were marginalized during the era of "free-market fundamentalism," among them Nobelists Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Sir James Mirrlees. He's also creating an "Institute for New Economic Thinking" to make research grants, convene symposiums, and establish a journal, all in an effort to take back the economics profession from the champions of free-market zealotry who have dominated it for decades, and to correct the failures of decades of market deregulation. Soros hopes matching funds will bring the total endowment up to $200 million. "Economics has failed not only to predict and explain what happened but has also failed to protect society," says Robert Johnson, a former managing director at Soros Fund Management, who will direct the new institute. "That's what the crisis revealed. The paradigm has failed. There is no guidance."
and WE have to listen about how billionaires funded murray rothbard, paying him big bucks to spout free market zealotry!
(well we did have koch but rothbard wasn't a big fan of him or getting fat off of his money)
I despise George Soros
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
What is really funny is the fact he would be among the first to be put against the wall when his socialist revolution comes.
Why do investors know so miserably little of economics? I understand their fields are more of finance rather than economics, but my god, it's always rich investors who bring up such wrongheaded ideas on such matters despite not having made the effort to learn anything about it.
Warren Buffet is a hardcore mercantilist and advises the US government to stop imports and prevent foreign direct investment.
John Maynard Keynes himself was a successful investor.
It seems anybody who becomes rich enough feels that his success in the commercial world equates to his ability to do the best for the commercial world.
With all that money, how will they get any work done?
I'm sure they'll blow through it pretty fast.
Here's some other things Robert Johnson has said...
(Source: Bill Moyers Journal; Published February 27, 2009)
On Friday, February 27, responding to continuing troubles at Citigroup, the Obama administration unveiled a complex stock transaction that would increase the nation's stake in the failed bank to 38%. According to experts, by purposely avoiding a more than 50% ownership stake in the bank, the Obama administration remains consistent with its publicly stated opposition to nationalizing major banks. The move increases the risk to taxpayers, but also potential reward, should the bank turn around and become profitable.
Robert Johnson, former managing director of Soros Fund Management and an expert in emerging markets, believes the government's approach — which he calls "drip intravenous capital injection" — wastes taxpayer money and won't solve the financial crisis. The government's approach, Johnson argues, is too cautious. Recent developments in Central Europe only reinforce that the world faces a possible economic collapse, Johnson told Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL, in which "the architecture of the integrated world would be shattered."
Johnson calls for more drastic intervention, but thinks nationalization is the wrong word, "People talk about nationalization. I just call it restructuring. Restructuring is a part of capitalism. That's how the airlines get restructured when they go through bankruptcy. Or you might have to deal with the auto industry, how you deal with venture capital projects. Do the same thing with the banks." Johnson explained on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL how a restructuring would work:
I would ask for letters of resignation from the top executives of all the major banks [...] You might not honor all those letters, but you'd have them. I would then say, "The stock is worth zero. The balance sheet is too far negative to continue risking the taxpayer's money." The examiners, somewhat like FDR did in the bank holiday, would examine the depth of the hole in those balance sheets. Fill that hole with money, taxpayer's money, to recapitalize. Send them back out into the marketplace where people know they're wholly capitalized. And the last thing I would do is I would separate the toxic assets from the bank that you put back in the marketplace. So everybody knew the resulting creature was sound and confidence could rebuild. Inner bank credit could start to flow again, because they aren't afraid of each other. (So seizing private businesses is now the new Capitalism? What more warped terminology and definitions are we in store for?)
Fill that hole with money, taxpayer's money, to recapitalize. Send them back out into the marketplace where people know they're wholly capitalized. And the last thing I would do is I would separate the toxic assets from the bank that you put back in the marketplace.
So everybody knew the resulting creature was sound and confidence could rebuild. Inner bank credit could start to flow again, because they aren't afraid of each other.
(So seizing private businesses is now the new Capitalism? What more warped terminology and definitions are we in store for?)
I feel like we are back in the eariler 19th century with jackoffs who are spreading tales of doom if we don't rid ourselves of this infectious disease of free markets and non-centralized banking.
'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition
"Economics has failed..." ???
Economics can't fail, only the practioniers and their schools of thought can fail. He might as well of said, Math has failed.
There have been plenty of economists that have predicted and warned about what has happened (and continues to happen). If Johnson chooses not to listen to them, it is he who has failed.
Polictics are driving the bus and dropped off critical economic thought at the first stop.
One serious problem is that Congress, regardless of best intentions, has no need to do the math or maintain a valid balance sheet, simply because they have a printing press (and ending supply of credit). That to me is a scary thought and one of the fundamental reasons for failure.
"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall." -Thomas Paine
ONE thing that Soros said that doesn't make any sense is the academia is in love with free markets, which isn't true. Academia is in love with the idea that free markets fail, thus we need the government to regulate an intervene, which is what we've had. I mean, come on, he probably believes the Fed is a free market institution, and that the local government-granted-monopoly public utilities are free markets institutions too.
Plus, he is using the free market to get rid of the free market. That is, why doesn't he give his money directly to the omniscient governments so that they can get rid of free market lovery in academia?
Soros is the insider's insider. He's no classic liberal.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
liberty student: Soros is the insider's insider. He's no classic liberal.
I'll wait for Soros to stop hoarding his money and give it away to the poor people of the world. No, wait, government knows best and private individuals do not. Or does he, a private individual, know best how to use his own money?
He's just another rent seeker.
This is seriously scary, and, unfortunately, probably indicative of public opinion at large.
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Prateek Sanjay: Why do investors know so miserably little of economics? I understand their fields are more of finance rather than economics, but my god, it's always rich investors who bring up such wrongheaded ideas on such matters despite not having made the effort to learn anything about it. Warren Buffet is a hardcore mercantilist and advises the US government to stop imports and prevent foreign direct investment. John Maynard Keynes himself was a successful investor. It seems anybody who becomes rich enough feels that his success in the commercial world equates to his ability to do the best for the commercial world.
Who do you think protectionism, mercantilism, and monopoly capitalism protect? Those who are already wealthy and established. It's in their interests to establish barriers to entry.
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