Soros Sees "Death Circle" if Greek Loan Rates High

Greece needs help to beat its crisis and there is a risk it will fall into a "death circle" of recession and falling budget revenue if its borrowing costs stay highGeorge Soros told Greek Skai TV on Monday.

Soros usually talks his book. It sounds to me like he might be long the euro, which he must mistakenly believe will go up on news of a successful Greek bailout.

He is correct about a death spiral for Greece.

Soros Wants to Takeover Baltimore (With a little help from Google)

George Soros is making a move on Baltimore.

Soros has pumped $70 million into Baltimore through his Open Society Institute front group organization. Now he's wants Google to wire the city for him.

From a statement OSI released yesterday:

"Google should consider Baltimore for this trial for the same reasons that I selected Baltimore for my philanthropic investment, and as the site of the only field office of the Open Society Institute in the United States," said George Soros. "Baltimore has strong community institutions but still many people who suffer from being disconnected from important resources. The city and its residents would benefit dramatically from enhanced communications infrastructure. An investment in Baltimore is sure to yield positive returns both for Google and for the city."

Does George Soros Want to Get a Cut Out of the Entire U.S. Housing Mortgage Market?

George Soros is out with a new commentary on the housing market. Some of his observations are accurate:

The business model of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is fundamentally unsound. These public-private partnerships were supposed to serve the public interest and the interest of shareholders. But this was never properly defined and reconciled.

Management’s interests were more closely allied with those of shareholders. They had an incentive to lobby Congress — both to expand homeownership and to protect and use their government-sponsored duopoly status.

The GSEs extended their activities from insuring and securitizing mortgages to building highly leveraged portfolios of securities by taking advantage of their implicit government backstop. They profited from the growth without bearing the risk of collapse: Heads they win, tails you lose.

The GSEs already had a checkered history, riddled with accounting irregularities. Eventually, they blew up — at a huge loss to taxpayers that may exceed $400 billion

As I was reading this, though, the questions kept running through my head, "What's the angle?", "Why is Soros promoting this understanding?"

It didn't take me long to find out. Instead of recommending that the housing mortgage market be returned to the free market, Soros has a scheme that would micro-manage the mortgage market, the Danish model:

There is a proven mortgage financing system already up and running. The Danish model has been in use, continuously, since the aftermath of the Great Fire of Copenhagen in 1795. It has not prevented housing bubbles, but it has never broken down. And it proved its worth again in 2008.

In the Danish system, homeowners do not borrow from either a mortgage originator or a GSE. They borrow from the bond market, through a mortgage credit intermediary. Every mortgage is balanced by an equivalent amount of an identical, and openly traded, bond...Mortgage Credit Intermediaries operate the POB system. They help homeowners understand and navigate the process. Most important, MCIs bear the credit risk of the mortgages — they remain “on the hook” in the event of delinquency or default.

In other words, this one type of mortgage issuance method is one that might emerge in a free market. There is really nothing that makes this superior to the old fashioned bank that raises funds long term and them makes housing loans with the funds. So why is Soros promoting this one specific financing method? The answer doesn't come until the short bio at the end of Soros' article, but it is a whopper, and if you know Soros, it is not unexpected. It reads:

George Soros, philanthropist and financier, pioneered the introduction of the Danish mortgage finance system in Mexico with the support of then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. He now participates in a joint venture with the Danish financial system that helps countries use this approach.

He's in a damn joint venture running the Danish method. Which sounds to me like Soros has turned the Danish method into a way for money to be pumped into his pocket every time someone gets a mortgage using the Danish method. And now he wants that to include the entire U.S. housing mortgage market.

The Soros Obama Connection

Bloomberg explains:

Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration...

CAP's president and founder, John Podesta, 59, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is one of three people running the transition team for president-elect Barack Obama, 47. A squadron of CAP experts is working with them...

These include the center's call for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan, a plan for universal health coverage through employer plans and proposals to create purchasing pools that allow small businesses to spread the cost among a larger group of workers. Obama has endorsed much of a CAP plan to create ``green jobs'' linked to alleviating global climate change.

CAP also is advocating the creation of a ``National Energy Council'' headed by an official with the stature of the national security adviser and who would be charged with ``transforming the energy base'' of the U.S. In addition, CAP urges the creation of a White House ``office of social entrepreneurship'' to spur new ideas for addressing social problems...

To help promote its ideas, CAP employs 11 full-time bloggers who contribute to two Web sites, ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room; others prepare daily feeds for radio stations. The center's policy briefings are standing-room only, packed with lobbyists, advocacy-group representatives and reporters looking for insights on where the Obama administration is headed.

For more on the international meddler Soros, see my post: The Soros New World Order: A Review of George Soros' "The Bubble of American Supremacy"

A Billionaire Promotes His Book

When five of the richest and most powerful US hedge fund proprietors gave sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week, the theatrical opportunities were as rich as the witnesses’ themselves, David Warsh comments. Billioniare George Soros had his latest book on reflexivity and financial crises, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means, on display on the table in front of him.

Rubbing It In Soros' Face

Street talk has Treasury Secretary Paulson's former firm, Goldman Sachs, taking over Lehman Brothers, which will not be a profitable transaction for George Soros, who has a 9.47 million common stock position in Lehman.

Soros, big time Democrat, behind Barack Obama versus Paulson and a Republican Administraton. Get it?

-Robert Wenzel

Paulson's Takeouts: Is Lehman The Last?

It's quite curious that all the major bankruptcies, and the like, that have occurred in recent weeks are all companies that have been out of favor with Treasury Secretary Paulson.

Bear Stearns has been on Paulson's list since they initially refused to help bailout Long Term Capital Management. Paulson has never liked Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Now, there is one more ticking time bomb, Lehman Brothers, where George Soros has a 9.47 million common stock position.

Soros is no friend of Republicans and, in fact, is a major backer of Barack Obama. Thus, it is a perfect target for Paulson, but Lehman is fighting hard for survival. Only time will tell how this one plays out,there are strong players on both sides, so it is too close to call, but there is a slight advantage too Paulson.

-Robert Wenzel

The Soros New World Order: A Review of George Soros' "The Bubble of American Supremacy"

It is rare to come across an author who footnotes an earlier embarrassing prediction.

George Soros in his new book, The Bubble of American Supremacy, provides such a footnote when he reminds readers that earlier on he had predicted the collapse of the global capitalist system. Certainly not a minor prediction by any measure. "I ... made an unconditional prediction ..., in 1997, when I predicted the imminent collapse of the global capitalist system. Later I had to eat my words," Soros writes.

It is also rare to come across an author who has $5 billion, let alone an author who has spent $5 billion to save the world. Soros, by his own accounting, tells us he has spent such sums. Since $5 billion has not been enough to save the world, Soros has again put pen to paper and written a new book.

George Soros' book is an attack on the Bush Administration's military adventure into Iraq. Lest some mistake the Soros attack as an attack on nation building by the Bush Administration, Soros clearly sets things straight. "My particular concern is that the debacle in Iraq will prevent future efforts and nation building," Soros tells us.

Soros, in other words, is an international meddler. While he does spend some of his own vast fortune on his schemes and while he does not like the way George W. Bush meddles, he most certainly is a meddler himself and has no qualms about taxing the citizenry to add to his billions in an effort to save the world.

"Total international assistance amounted to $5.6 billion in 2002. This amount represents only 0.18% of global GDP...countries at the center of global capitalist system enjoy far too many advantages over countries at the periphery," Soros tells us.

It's easy to see where Soros is going with these comments. "..in 1992, I proposed that a $10 billion IMF program to Russia should be earmarked for the payment of social security and unemployment benefits,"Soros writes.

This is a curious comment given the state of social security in the United States and the fact that it is so close to the precipice of collapse that even Alan Greenspan warns that changes must be made. It becomes even more curious when one evaluates another comment written by Soros, "The dismantling of the welfare state is a relatively new phenomenon whose full effects have not yet been felt."

Soros cites the United States as a country that has dismantled its welfare state. One, of course, would get objections from many that the United States has in anyway dismantled its welfare progams, a country that has an ever expanding social security base, medicare base and unemployment insurance program. But, this is what Soros writes.

In other words, Soros is a very confused thinker. The book is chock full of such confusion. Clearly, Soros' vision of the world hasn't got much clearer since his embarrassing forecast of imminent collapse of the global capitalist system. Further, don't mistake Soros for an isolationist. For Soros military action and nation building is not out of the question, military action is, indeed, a last resort for Soros. George Soros is not against a New World Order. He simply wants it to be the Soros New World Order as opposed to the Bush New World Order.