I'm always amazed how opportunists think they are the only ones who thought of their schemes.
I suppose one's perspective on the whole affair depends a lot on whether you think governments should be using the public treasury to manipulate markets and try to muscle asset prices in one direction or another. Since I think that is arrogant folly, and destined to end in costly failure regardless, better to have some speculator come along and put a stop to it before it can drag on and result in even more losses to the public.
If everyone thought the pound was going to be just fine, they'd happily buy his sterling and nothing would have happened. But the expectation was that the pound was overvalued and would soon nosedive. So when Soros' sales began to apply downward pressure to the price, everyone bandwagoned because that was what they were going to do anyway.
Like today with Ukraine. NATO's primary goal was to protect member nations territorial integrity against Russian incursion. Who here still believes NATO will do that, even if Russia just annexes the entirety of Ukraine and Poland ?
The big issue people are having here is that it's an instance of clearly the government not being in control. What use is democracy if the government isn't in control ? What use is NATO if it doesn't respond to territorial incursions ?
There's a big difference between annexing (parts of, or even all of) Ukraine (which isn't a NATO member), and Poland (which is not only in NATO, but also the EU)
UA is not in NATO, this alone renders your "notion" a little misleading at best. Shouldn't NATO been dissolved after the Warshaw Pact ended? Who is really the "bad guy" in this complicated matter? Is the corrupt oligopolistic Russia(that was literaly taken apart 2 decades ago) the real aggressor?[1] But since this is not about UA I'll leave it here.
I do agree with your 3rd paragraph though. We're experiencing a play on democracy - a oppressive global regime with its equivalent of kings, aristocracy, vassals, the dirt in between and slavery, packed in golden toilet paper.. with a lot of democracy-stickers on it..
Among people who have Soros-level financial power and moxie, they generally are current with economic thought, in which fixed currencies in developed countries are considered a very bad thing by just about everyone. The British government was not doing the world any favors by fixing the pound. The sooner its fixed rate was broken, the better.
It is convenient to tell yourself that smart people like you are not rich because you are too good to be rich, but this doesn't align with reality, not in this particular case nor in general.
Do you think it's morally or ethically wrong that you paid $3 for a hamburger that McDonald's only paid $2 to produce?
Opportunities and tradeoffs exist all around us. It's simply how our world works.
This may help you, and the original gentleman I responded to in understanding that its not necessarily a case of having the stronger ability but sometimes a case of having a weaker conscience.
What I assume is disgusting is that the British Government's money actually belong to British taxpayers, who contributed it in the first place. Those taxpayers have reasonable expectations that this money will be used to indirectly benefit them or for the good of the British people at large, and not end up squandered.
Now other people correctly pointed out that the pound would have devaluated with or without Soros, so I don't think his actions where all that unethical. But as it happened so suddenly instead of the usual drawn-out game of rumors, some politicians clearly felt the burn.
Why do you find one morally repugnant and not the other?
Both parties were engaged in currency manipulation of their own free will, no one forced the british government to take their currency position.
If most people are so ethical and moral as to not take a bet against another entity, in this case the government, how do they reconcile significant moral and ethical issues such as the following with themselves:
- The fact that a vast quantity of consumer electronic goods are made under conditions that have been documented to be absolutely horrendous in Asia? In factories whose employees are so stomped upon, that there has been a significant issue with employee suicide on the job?
Those morals and ethics certainly haven't prevented "most people" from pushing demand for these consumer electronics in the West.
- Industrial fishing / trawling and the sheer damage it has done to the oceans. There is sustained demand for fish caught using these methods, yet it is these methods that are destroying fish stocks so frequently that they're having trouble replenishing / breeding again. Fish we don't eat, or mammals caught in the activity, end up being tossed back into the water, dead over nothing.
How do most people, being moral and ethical, not just allow this to continue but push demand for it by asking for cheaper and cheaper fish to be available?
- Oil. How are most people, being honest and moral, still fueling demand for oil - and putting pressure in place for cheaper oil (thus increased quantity must be found) - when these activities are polluting oceans, destroying habitats etc. and whose proceeds are propping up very brutal, very oppressive regimes in some oil producing countries in the Middle East?
I could continue listing these absolutely unethical, absolutely immoral activities that we, "most people", continue to support on a daily basis but I believe the point should be clear.
"Most people" do not take advantage of economic / financial opportunities because such opportunities generally require:
i - Significant capital for significant returns
ii - Risk aversion, as one must risk significant capital and may have hugely negative returns, if any at all.
So let us not pretend that most people took the ethical and moral high ground here.