Monday, October 12, 2009

Soros on Falsehoods, Lies and Investing

In an email, Brian Erickson sends along this note:
In the early 1990's George Soros gave a speach before the Committee for Monetary Research and Education and was quoted by John Liscio (former Barrons reporter) as follows: "Economic history is a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths. It represents the path to big money. The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend, and step off before it is discredited."
Then Brian tries to put this in context with Soros' announcement that he is going to invest $1 billion in green technology:
Saturday (10/10/09) regarding his investment in "green" technologies he was quoted as follows: "I will look for profitable opportunities, but I will also insist that the investments make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change."

So is climate change "the trend whose premise is false" or is Soros no longer interested in "big money"?

3 comments:

  1. Is there any way you can ask Mr. Erickson for a citation on that Soros quote? Some of my colleagues are interested in it but we can't use it if it's just hearsay on a blog post.

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  2. Bob,

    In his email he noted to me that he lost the original reference. My guess is a Lexis-Nexus search might turn it up at Barrons. Or possibly it was in the Liscio Report, which might require significant digging.Lisicio died in 2000.

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  3. This can be cross-checked another way. Discounting the debates on the warming/cooling/whatever, the "problem of climate change" cannot be "solved" - that is far beyond our capacity. If one accepts the warming thesis, the damage is done and now the climate simply delivers the consequences. If one doesn't accept that, implying the changes are natural, the conclusion on what can be done is the same: nothing. Either way humanity can only adjust to a “new normal”. Eventually this will become obvious, one way or another. By then the "prudent investor" will have secured all accessible agricultural assets such as then-fertile land and clean water sources, and a WMD arsenal to defend it from the hordes of millions desperate refugees.

    Anyway, if they were serious about “solving the climate problem”, at the very least they would stop building new coal-fired power stations. That is not happening, not even being discussed.

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