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Comment by Slansitartop | Hacker News Reader

> I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros

> He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth.

Those characterizations may have their origins in an element of truth, dating from the early 90s. Paul Krugman described his Soros's actions thusly:

> [N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'.[65] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#1992_pound_short)

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The principals of finance are the same for everyone. Just because the UK (like Mexico, Argentina, and most of SE Asia) decided to ignore the rules, doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him an intelligent investor.

When you're screwing with monetary policy and most college kids (in finance and economics) know what you're doing will blow up in your face. To assume investors won't take advantage is not only naive but ignorant.

Play stupid games with your policy, win stupid prizes. This would be like turning over the Fed's duties to the US Congress. If this ever happens, diversify in other currencies, tangible assets, and precious metals. Because it's going to be a hell of a ride.

I'm sure the medical companies that sold HIV infected blood products to countries that didn't check for the HIV virus were also "intelligent investors" in your mind. Or the Chiquita fruit company

It might not be illegal but ethics come back to you

There is nothing unethical in taking money away from a first world government in fair market deals, within the rules set out by those same governments. They employ tens of thousands of well paid experts who's job is exactly to maximize national interest and who would not blink an eye to crush investors like Soros, would the places be reversed.

Comparing that to poor individuals who were abused by large corporations is disingenuous.

> There is nothing unethical in taking money away from a first world government in fair market deals

If it leads to a greater long term net suffering in the world then I would argue yes it is.

If anything about those deals was unethical it was what the Bank of England was doing. They did a disservice to every citizen of the country. That blowup was going to happen regardless of whether or no Soros was on the other side.

This thread have given me the uneasy feeling that I watched a completely different show.

I only remember the outlines of the issue but I recall the Conservatives wanting to not "look weak" on policy reflecting ongoing negotiations in Berlin when they had already been repeatedly warned about the consequences and decided to play chicken with the market?

No one say bad, they just say these people invoke turmoil and crisis for their own profit. Is it good or bad or neutral, it’s your own judgement.

He hardly invoked turmoil.

Joining the ERM invoked turmoil. It was a silly idea and the valuation being wrong wasn't exactly a minority view.

We should be criticising and remembering the idiocy of Norman Lamont rather than of George Soros for profiting from that idiocy.

Now I don't know enough about the rest of Soros' career to have a view of whether he's good or bad. The infamous ERM short is not a smoking gun here.

Exactly. I was living in the UK at the time and it remains the only time I've ever made any money playing forex.

It was obvious to increasingly.. everyone .. that the Bank was playing chicken with the markets.

Soros was on the winning side.

What are "these people" though? Successful investors? The "East Coast establishment"? Jewish investors?

I believe the point your parent post was making is that these distinctions are bogus. The entire investment business (and not only that) is amoral. This is unfortunately inherent to Capitalism.

> The entire investment business (and not only that) is amoral.

Guns are amoral too, but we still expect people to use them morally.

There are in fact laws for that. Soros' investments were perfectly legal from what I know. We could change this if we wanted to, Capitalism is a man-made system after all. Demonizing successful players is just pointless.

You're making the mistake of equating the law with morality. Greatly simplified, the a law is just an attempt to roughly codify some moral principles and give them some teeth.

We still expect people to act morally, even in the absence of laws to force them to do so.

> You're making the mistake of equating the law with morality. Greatly simplified, the a law is just an attempt to roughly codify some moral principles and give them some teeth.

I didn't mean to equate them and I don't think I did. I was implicitly making the same connection that you just made explicitly.

> We still expect people to act morally, even in the absence of laws force them to do so.

Who really expects investors to act morally rather than doing whatever's legal? Heck, who expects Facebook to prioritize morals over profits? Don't people who have these expectations deeply misunderstand how today's economic system works?

> Who really expects investors to act morally rather than doing whatever's legal? Heck, who expects Facebook to prioritize morals over profits? Don't people who have these expectations deeply misunderstand how today's economic system works?

I expect (as in bound in duty or obligated) them to. However, I expect (as in predict) they will not.

Are you suggesting we stop 'hoping' (I don't hope investors act morally, I expect the regulatory apparatus to force them to, or penalize accordingly) altogether?

Sure, I hope HSBC won't launder money for Mexican Cartels. And when they do, I hope that some world government decides to toss the executives in jail and fine the company out of existence. And yes, when the settlement is just a slap-on-the-wrist-fine, a low VP getting canned, and the execs sitting pretty I hope for a return in the guillotine. And they all hope that I get fed up with hoping and become hopeless.

Is that what you hope as well?

>We still expect people to act morally, even in the absence of laws force them to do so.

Naive people do. However, part of the problem is what people believe is moral differs, it's not an absolute. Lots of people project their moralities onto society and the law and are just dumbfounded when they don't match. Is that a problem with society or the individual?

That's an academic argument. The basic building block of any society is the expectation-requirement that the other members will act according to the moral principles of that society. At a minimum, the people who fail to abide by those principles can be judged and criticized for their violations.

And to pull this back on track, this all came up in the context of the idea the market is amoral so we shouldn't expect the actors in that market to be anything but selfish and amoral. I think that's wrong and pernicious idea.

Free-flowing capital would be regulated by who? The World Government?

Turmoil and crisis is usually the result of above described idiocy and people who “take advantage” of turmoil and crisis are intelligent.

Sure, but people can still have feelings about it even if what the person did was legal.

> It makes him an intelligent investor.

It makes him an amoral investor.

We need more rich people with morals, not those who use the letter of the law to destroy things and then claim they're not to blame because they played by the rules.

Because something is legal doesn't mean you should do it.

Here's the reality. The people that CREATED the situation were the immoral and unethical ones. If he doesn't cash in, someone else does. Or even worse, it grows exponentially until it collapses in on itself.

Maybe look at the idiots running those governments and their finance people when you want to pass judgment. Easy money is easy money. He had to have the capital to take advantage anyway.

> If he doesn't cash in, someone else does.

That doesn't make it right. It just makes him amoral.

"I had to murder this guy, because if I didn't, someone else will!"

Just as a nitpick, it should be spelled "Soroj" instead of "Soroi" since George Soros's surname is in Esperanto, and that's the proper way to form a plural noun.

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