Soros Makes a Move to Control Global Police Forces

This is off the charts. It looks like billionaire George Soros is getting serious about controlling current global turmoil. It appears he is getting ready to influence, if not control, global police forces. NYT reports:

On Wednesday, George Soros, the billionaire investor, is expected to name Christopher Stone, a well-known expert on criminal justice, the new leader of his unconventional philanthropic empire.

Mr. Stone, a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will fully take the helm in July of the Open Society Foundations, a sprawling constellation of more than 30 organizations that operate in places as diverse as Baltimore, Jakarta, the Kremlin and Congress.

Just what does "expert on criminal justice" mean? Get a load of this, from NYT (my emphasis):

Mr. Stone built National Defender while at the Vera Institute for Justice, a nonprofit group that works to improve justice systems, where he eventually rose to become chief executive for 10 years. He expanded Vera’s international programs, working with national governments in South Africa, Russia and Chile and developing a reputation as an expert on the professionalization of police forces.

“Police chiefs will confide in him, and at the same time, he can convene meetings of people from the grass-roots civil-rights community and command the same kind of respect,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department and an old friend.

Yikes. How much does Soros spend on his hobby of trying to control the world? NYT provides an answer:

Mr. Soros has never endowed his collection of foundations, but he often gives away enough money in a year to make Open Society the most generous philanthropy in the country after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This year, for example, it is on track to give away about $860 million.

Get Out of Muni Bonds: Fed Analysts say Falling Property Values May Amplify Municipal Budget Crises

The impact from the Great Recession is not completely over, especially at the municipal government level.

The dramatic fall in home prices is shrinking the property tax base, contributing to a sharp decline in municipal tax revenues, says a study by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland researchers Thomas Fitzpatrick IV and Mary Zenker.

Using Cuyahoga County, Ohio, as an example, Fitzpatrick and Zenker say that differences between market and county estimates of property values from 2008 through 2010 imply that when property values are reassessed in 2012, they will be between 11 percent and 18 percent lower than the 2010 county estimates. This suggests that after reappraisal, the county tax base will be at least $1.1 billion lower than it was in 2010.

The impact has been felt most strongly in Cuyahoga County's central city (Cleveland) and its inner-ring suburbs, which may see property values fall 38 to 45 percent and 26 to 30 percent, respectively.

Soros: Israel a Stumbling Block to a Democratic Egypt

George Soros writes in WaPo:

The main stumbling block is Israel. In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks. And some U.S. supporters of Israel are more rigid and ideological than Israelis themselves. Fortunately, Obama is not beholden to the religious right, which has carried on a veritable vendetta against him. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is no longer monolithic or the sole representative of the Jewish community. The main danger is that the Obama administration will not adjust its policies quickly enough to the suddenly changed reality.

I am, as a general rule, wary of revolutions. But in the case of Egypt, I see a good chance of success. As a committed advocate of democracy and open society, I cannot help but share in the enthusiasm that is sweeping across the Middle East. I hope President Obama will expeditiously support the people of Egypt. My foundations are prepared to contribute what they can. In practice, that means establishing resource centers for supporting the rule of law, constitutional reform, fighting corruption and strengthening democratic institutions in those countries that request help in establishing them, while staying out of those countries where such efforts are not welcome.

Soros Continues with Age of Aquarius Investments

Is George Soros (age 80) trying to bring back the free love era of the 1960's?

Soros spent $1 million backing California's Proposition 19, which went down to defeat in Tuesday's election, but if passed would have legalized marijuana in the state.

Now, Soros is investing in The Female Health Co., a publicly traded company that manufactures female condoms.

Soros’ Soros Fund Management, in an SEC report, says it owns  1.3 million share, or 5.1%, stake in the maker of the FC2 condom.

WRSTGD as an Excuse to Raise Taxes

The elite continue to set up the play for higher taxes.

Salon's David Sirota pimps the idea by writing that the Worst Recession Since the Great Depression (WRSTGD) is a perfect time to RAISE taxes:

But as history (and "Freakonomics") teach, such oversimplified memes tend to obscure the counterintuitive notions that often hold the most profound truths. And in the case of the WRSTGD, the most important of these is the idea that we are in economic dire straits because tax rates are too low.

When he isn't relying on the non sequitir method of analysis that Freakonomics brings to the debate, Sirota relies on that other great economist, Hillary Clinton:

...with USA Today reporting that tax rates are at a 60-year nadir, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Brookings Institution audience that "the rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing [major] employment issues ... whether it is individual, corporate, whatever the taxation forms are."

To top things off, he then quotes the Soros' front group, Center for American Progress:

...a Center for American Progress analysis shows that "Greece has consistently spent less" than Europe's other social democracies — most of which have avoided Greece's plight.

"The real problem facing the Greeks is not how to reduce spending but how to increase revenue collections," the report concludes, fingering Greece's comparatively "anemic tax collections" as its economic problem.

Then more from Hillary:

In summing up her remarks, Clinton said that this higher-tax/higher-revenue formula "used to work for us until we abandoned it."

Brace yourself, once mid-terms are over, Obama's next play is major tax increases.

The Soros Botswana Play

Discovery Metals, which has George Soros as a shareholder, is looking to raise $150m in loans and new shares later this year, according to UK's Independent.

It needs the money to develop the Boseto copper mine in north-west Botswana.

Brad Sampson, the group's managing director, will present a feasibility study to the board later this month, which is expected to show that the mine could produce more than 30,000 tonnes of copper a year, says the Independent.

With Soros in the mix, don't be surprised to ultimately see some Import-Export, World Bank, etc. money find its way to Discovery.

Oliver Stone Lunches with George Soros

Oliver Stone sure hangs around with a bad crowd. First he makes a movie that is an ode to Venezuelan dictator Huogo Chavez, then, according to NyPo, he is spotted in the Hamptons, where he lunched at the house of  George Soros.

I once partied with Stone at Sky Bar in Beverly Hills. He hung around with a much better class of people back then. He was accompanied by Czech twins, and then the former football player and actor Jim Brown came to the table.

Soros Front Group White Washes Criticism of General Petraeus

MoveOn.org, a George Soros front group, has removed all criticisim of General Patreus, now that Petraeus is in command of the Afghanistan war effort.

The criticism was pretty severe. New EPJ contributor Rick Newbold posts the anti-Petraeus ad that MoveOn.org placed in NYT.

But here's what happens when you go to the MoveOn.org pages that originally carried the Petraeus criticism. Check it out for yourself:

http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html

http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus_ad.html

Soros has been a heavy supporter of the Afghanistan war. Negative comments about Petraeus, given that he is now commander in charge of the war, would only further weaken American support for the war. People might even want to Move On, and you can't have that.

Soros Lashes Out Against German Fiscal Responsibility

It's obvious that George Soros has some heavy inflation bets and he is going to lash out at any country that attempts fiscal responsibility.

"German policy is a danger for Europe, it could destroy the European project," he told German weekly Die Zeit.

"If the Germans don't change their policy, their exit from the currency union would be helpful for the rest of Europe," he said.

Now what can this possibly mean other than that Soros wants more inflation in the EU? If the Germans attempt to bring fiscal responsibility to the "European project", then throw them the hell out, appears to be the Soros advice to the EU.

George Soros on Jim Rogers: He Is Not a Great Investor

Jim Rogers once worked for George Soros.

Since they departed ages ago, I have never seen them speak about one another, until today. This morning I posted a youtube video of George Soros being trapped in his own statements by a Chinese gentleman who appears to be using the arguments developed by Tom Woods in his book, Meltdown.

After the debate between the the Chinese gentleman and Soros, the video tape went into a Chinese voiceover, but the patient are indeed rewarded. I listened through the Chinese voiceover only to discover on the other end of the voiceover Soros discussing Rogers.

A second Chinese gentlemen who appears to be an anchor asked Soros about the investment style of Rogers and also Warren Buffett. It is unclear if the anchor was aware that Rogers once worked for Soros.

Soros answered the question by telling the audience that Rogers once worked for him, and then said that when Rogers worked for him he did the work of 8 people. He went on to say that he and Rogers parted ways because although Rogers was a great analyst that could do the work of 8, he did not want to work with 7 others. Soros then said that although Rogers is a great analyst, he does not think Rogers has been a great investor. How Soros could actually know such a thing, since Rogers is a private investor and does not have to disclose his positions or profit and loss statement, is unknown.

The video is in my earlier post, here. The relevant part of the clip starts at roughly the 7 minute mark.

George Soros Stumbles in the Face of Tom Woods' Influenced Questioning

Dixie Flatline writes:

The first Chinese participant does a fantastic job of challenging George Soros, with what sounds to me, like an argument directly out of Tom Woods NYT bestseller, Meltdown. Now I haven’t read Meltdown, but I have caught all of Woods’ articles and speeches available online, and feel I can confidently make that assessment.

At 2:30, the Chinese participant mentions that markets can correct themselves, and Soros argues they cannot.

Notice how Soros stumbles when he talks about how markets are smarter than regulators, then claims that only regulators can stop perpetual market failure. And the questioner does a wonderful job of pointing out, that only expansion of the monetary base can provide the necessary environment for these large booms, and Soros starts blinking, which sometimes is a sign of discomfort (approx. 4:30)

Great video, and wonderful to see the oligarchs challenged, particularly in Asia, which is where the hope for rational, free market economics, specifically Austrian Economics, has enormous potential to take hold. As the flows of capital shift from the West to the East, its my feeling that change in economic attitudes will come where people have a healthy disrespect for the state, for propaganda, and the population generally values intellectualism, and savings.

Watch the video:

Is George Soros Down to His Last Billion?

Here's a fascinating story brought to the surface by John Hempton: George Soros is placing heavy money with Carlo Civelli.

How does one explain Civelli? Here's how Hempton attempts to do so:

His name alone gets Canadian securities regulators into a lather as he was a major investor and a major seller (in advance of the crunch) of some of the most egregious stock promotes of all time. Delgratia is the most-cited example - where Civelli was allegedly the main backer of a company which had a major gold find. The stock plummeted on revelations that drill samples had been salted - or as the court documents sum up the engineering reports, "any [gold] detected had been introduced after drilling." The salting was done by persons unknown and the chief geologist won a defamation suit when the Canadian press suggested he did it.

Civelli was a backer of another over-hyped resource stock - Pinewood Resources – a stock which announced large finds and collapsed to pennies. There was also Arakis Energy. Arakis sums up what is good-and-bad about Civelli. Arakis - through dealings with warlords - got prospective acreage in Sudan on which they found oil. The quality of the finds was however grotesquely overhyped leading to a run-up and collapse. The company was eventually sold to Talisman for roughly 15 percent of peak price. The CEO - a longtime Civelli associated - agreed many of the nasty facts and settled for a twenty year ban from the Canadian securities industry. The good bit was that there were real resources there - value was created. The bad bit was that - as per many Civelli stocks - it was overhyped.

Note that Carlo Civelli was not charged – and only management received bans. Overhyping is epidemic in the stock market. Moreover there were plenty of good bits in Arakis. There was real oil - and in commercial quantity. Carlo Civelli has - contrary to what his critics have said - backed some valuable resource projects. That Carlo Civelli has backed frauds does not imply that if Carlo Civelli backs it is a fraud. Nor does it imply that Carlo Civelli was involved in the fraud. Both of those are much more dubious propositions.

The most controversial current Civelli stock is Interoil - a company with real gas finds in remote Papua New Guinea and with well researched allegations that the finds are overhyped.

Into this picture steps none other than George Soros. Here's Hempton again:

Still the Interoil bears (and there are plenty) were dealt a body-blow when Soros funds management purchased a large stake in the controversial company presumably after competent due-diligence. Interoil is one of Soros's largest holdings. Sure Buffett buying would confer even more credibility to Interoil - but Soros is a pretty good second best.

This blog however does not want to comment on Interoil - it wants to raise the latest association of Carlo Civelli and Soros funds management. Dear readers - I give you Manas Petroleum and its subsidiary Petromanas into which Soros has invested just over $40 million.

Manas/Petromanas is an unlikely candidate for a large Soros investment. The parent trades on the over-the-counter bulletin board and has used paid stock promoters. It maintains its website in Vancouver rather than in its home base of Switzerland. Petromanas (a listed subsidiary) trades on the Canadian venture exchange and their website is maintained in New York not where their business operations are. Petromanas owns the Albanian prospects of Manas and it is that which Soros is investing in.

These companies are slickly promoted.

So what is Hempton's guess on what is going on? He speculates:

I see three possibilities:

1. Soros has found the well promoted penny stock that really is worth your hard earned cash or

2. The Soros organization have become active participants in penny stock schemes or

3. That Soros organization has a rogue analyst/fund manager who is (knowingly or unknowingly) involved in stealing large licks of money by investing in dodgy promotes run by Civelli and his agents.

Stuffed if I know.

These are all reasonable speculations on some truly unexpected activity. There's one other possibility that makes little sense on the surface, but every time I have seen a heavy hitter head to Vancouver, it's because he is a little light in the liquid cash department.

I remember many years back I wondered why billionaire Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Kashoggi, was playing in the Vancouver penny market. Sure enough, it eventually surfaced that the big spending Kashoggi was having financial problems.

I doubt Soros is down to the cash in his wallet,  and these "investments" are being made through his funds--not necessarily personally, but it might not be the time for a bank to be advancing the man a billion on his signature.

Roubini: Lauds Austrian Economics; Hangs with Soros

Nouriel Roubini continues to be one of the most fascinating economists operating today. His new book is just out, Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance. I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but I did skim through it this afternoon at a Borders Books.

During my quick skim , I found that Roubini treats the Austrian School of economics with respect, something which is obviously not the norm among the Keynesian crowd. He correctly notes in the book that the anti-regulation conclusions of the Austrian school almost force an Austrian economist  to  be a libertarian. He also correctly understands that the Austrians are against, from a policy perspective point of view, central banks printing money in the first place and that Austrians are against printing money as a solution to the downturn.

Two areas I would disagree with Roubini on in his Austrian analysis  are his view of Joseph Schumpeter as the important figure in Austrian economics, and also Roubini's view that the fall off in aggregate demand during the crisis phase of the business cycle can not be solved by the Austrian prescription of allowing the malinvestments to liquidate.

Curiously, both these problems with Roubini's view  were actually key areas of specialty by two Austrian Economics professors who taught at one time at New York University, where Roubini currently teaches. Unfortunately for Roubini, he teaches in the Stern graduate business school , whereas Israel Kirzner and Fritz Machlup taught in another era and in the graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Kirzner advanced the role of the entrepreneur, from an Austrian perspective, in a much more rigorous fashion than Schumpeter. And he highlighted much more important roles that the entrepreneur plays, than Schumpeter did with his "creative destruction" entrepreneur. Roubini needs to read Kirzner's Competition and Entrepreneurship, pronto.

Further, Roubini calls the debates between Schumpeter and Keynes as most important.  I certainly differ with this view. The debates between Austrian economist Fredrich Hayek and Keynes were much more important, as they directly concerned the nature and policies of the business cycle.

Roubini also argues that in the short term the Austrian solution of just allowing the economy to correct itself during a downturn in the business cycle can not work because of the fall in aggregate demand, what I would call the extreme desire to hold cash. Machlup answered Roubini's concerns regarding this very point in a May 1937 paper, Can We Control the Boom?

Aside from Roubini's concerns regarding short-term aggregate demand problems and Austrian solutions, he writes that in the medium-term and the long-term Austrian economics has "something to teach us."

I certainly can't argue with that assessment, although I think he may misunderstand a bit that Austrians aren't anti-debt, but rather any economic misdirection caused by central bank money printing,

Roubini also says that it is a shame that those who follow Keynes, and those who follow Schumpeter, don't  talk to each. This is true, but representing the Austrians, here he should have listed Mises, Hayek and Rothbard. All three have followers in the modern  dayAustrian camps, whereas there are none that I am aware of that would consider themselves as followers of Schumpeter.

The other part of Roubini's book that caught my eye was his hefty acknowledgements where at one point he thanks George Soros for allowing him to use Soros' summer house for writing part of the book.  Now, I know some will immediately jump at this and charge that Roubini is simply a Soros tool. I don't see it that way. Roubini as I have written before is the most  connected economist alive today. He's a skilled operator who knows how to work the global inner elite, Soros et al. Soros has his tools, but Roubini is his own man.

The Curious Gift Giving of John Paulson that Will Result in Further Delclines in Mortgage Backed Securities

Andrew Mellon reports via Lila Rajiva:

John Paulson, recently back in the news due to the SEC’s civil suit against Goldman Sachs was the most famous winner of the subprime mortgage debacle, as he used derivatives to bet against mortgage-backed securities that in some cases he had worked with banks to create in order to profit when the housing market crashed. He has received much acclaim for being an astute investor who took a contrarian view and put his money to work accordingly even in the face of rising housing prices, placing bets that ended up paying off handsomely. Paulson & Co. earned an unprecedented $15 billion from the trades, and Paulson himself was said to pocket approximately $4 billion in 2007.

While overnight, Paulson became a celebrity in the financial community, with the media following his every move, interestingly one tidbit seems to have largely evaded them. As John Paulson noted in a statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in November of 2008.

As we saw the difficulty homeowners were having in making mortgage payments, in July 2007, prior to the initiation of any government support programs, Paulson & Co. made a $15 million charitable contribution to the Center for Responsible Lending to form the Institute for Foreclosure Legal Assistance (IFLA). The institute supports local groups across the country providing legal representation to families facing foreclosure.

Incidentally, the IFLA is being managed by the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA), another ACORN-like organization that helped inflate the housing bubble with its dubious practices.

That Paulson would make such a donation is ironic, in that his contribution came from money that Paulson & Co. had earned from the collapse of the very housing bubble that the CRL had helped to blow.  While most in the media remained mum on this curious gift, to its credit, Business Week provided a disturbing but logical reason for it, insinuating that Paulson was to financially benefit from a bankruptcy reform bill that the CRL was advocating.

According to a trade publication called the Credit Union Times, in early 2008 Republican Representative Patrick McHenry sent a letter to Democratic Representative Barney Frank requesting a hearing on the use of non-profits to manipulate markets, citing Paulson’s donation as being reflective of this problem.  Specifically he asserted, “In October, he [Paulson] gave $15 million to the Center For Responsible Lending, which has been leading the charge in lobbying for a law that would let bankruptcy judges restructure mortgage loans. By forcing servicers to accept lowered monthly payments, market values would likely fall even further, and Mr. Paulson would most definitely benefit financially.” ...

Paulson was not the only major benefactor of the CRL.  As Activist Cash notes, George Soros’ Open Society Institute has donated at least $100,000 to the CRL.

Here's another curiosity surrounding Paulson, Soros, CRL and Senator Chuck Schumer, detailed in the same article,  that worked out well ($$$) for Paulson and Soros:

During the throes of the credit crisis with banks failing across the country due to their collapsing loan portfolios, friends of the CRL John Paulson and George Soros along with a handful of other money managers formed an investment vehicle called IMB Management Holdings to acquire these beaten down assets. The first bank that they purchased? IndyMac.

As you may remember, IndyMac was the struggling bank that New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer curiously was said to have caused a run on in July of 2008, and I say curiously given that a. IndyMac was a commercial bank in California, about as far as could be from Schumer’s constituents, and b. normally it does not fall under the job description of members of Congress (even ones with a fetish for the camera as great as that of Schumer) to leak statements that may materially affect financial institutions. Schumer’s statements on the problems of IndyMac were eerily similar to those divulged in a report released by the Center for Responsible Lending entitled “IndyMac: What Went Wrong? How an “Alt-A” Leader Fueled its Growth with Unsound Abusive Mortgage Lending.” The very business that the CRL had helped push banks like IndyMac into was now being criticized by the CRL as abusive.

The timing of Schumer’s actions and those of CRL are worth noting. Sen. Schumer released his “concerns” about Indymac on a Thursday. On the following Monday, CRL released their “report” on Indymac. Understand, the CRL report was the first time in the organization’s history that they released a full research report on an individual company. Built on interviews with former employees, the report would have taken some time to compile. It may have been a weird coincidence, but a PR firm could not have designed a better schedule.

Whether or not Schumer and the CRL orchestrated the bank run, within 11 days of Schumer’s revelations, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from IndyMac. A bank that at its peak in March of 2008 had held $32 billion in assets was sold to Paulson and Soros’ holding company for $13.9 billion in a deal that closed in March of 2009. Created out of IndyMac’s remains was OneWest Bank.

Rajiva comments:

Can this all be a coincidence? Given George Soros’ proclivity for shady dealings in his profiting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in his downright frightening instigation of “velvet revolutions” abroad, it is hard to imagine him partaking in a venture in which the odds are not decidedly in his favor. Soros’ investing style is to guarantee success by supporting policies that undermine countries and their industries, and profit handsomely off of their failures and at times subsequent bailouts, be it in the case of the British pound or Citigroup. What is peculiar is how wedded Soros has become to John Paulson, a man whose past I have not found to be checkered with progressivism, but I suppose their profits trump partisanship.