"Republican double-speak"

Politics International Politics
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Educated at the LSE in London, Soros was heavily influenced by the works of Karl Popper. Popper challenged some of the ruling orthodoxies of philosophy: logical positivism, Marxism, determinism and linguistic philosophy. He argued that there are no subject matters but only problems and our desire to solve them. He said that scientific theories cannot be verified but only tentatively refuted, and that the best philosophy is about profound problems, not word meanings. Isaiah Berlin rightly said that Popper produced one of the most devastating refutations of Marxism. Through his ideas Popper promoted a critical ethos, a world in which the give and take of debate is highly esteemed in the precept that we are all infinitely ignorant, that we differ only in the little bits of knowledge that we do have, and that with some co-operative effort we may get nearer to the truth. He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a staunch defender of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism upon which it is based, and an implacable opponent of authoritarianism. He is best known for his repudiation of the classical observationalist-inductivist account of science, his espousal of falsifiability as a criterion of demarcation between science and non-science, and his defence of the ‘Open Society’.

One of Popper’s students and advocates is the investor George Soros, who says that his investment strategies are based on a Popperian skepticism about the reliability of any human belief. Soros is one of the most successful investors in history. This has made him enemies in authoritarian states in Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Personally, I like this man. He puts his money where his mouth is - like Teddy Turner.

Chewy

22

Why? I wasn’t yawning about his knowledge of financial markets.

I wasn’t yawning at his knowledge of financial markets or economics. I was and am yawning at his notion that the American electorate is misinformed. Yes, of course much of the American electorate is misinformed… a sizeable segment of it always has been.

However, I know that Soros is currently on a crusade to get President Bush out of office. Thus, I can logically infer that his comments refer to a misinformed American electorate NOW… one that elected Bush in 2000 and supports him now.

Had Soros asserted that a sizeable segment of the the US electoate has always been misinformed, I would have agreed with him. But in the context of his current crusade to get Bush out of the whitehouse, it seems that he didn’t feel the American electorate was misinformed when Clinton was elected just a short time ago. That seems a stupid notion to me, regardless of how much money he’s made. The Bush family is pretty wealthy also… yet you seem amazingly arrogant in dismissing the President’s policies… :laughing:

As such, I stand by my comments. He seems upset merely that others don’t agree with his “truth”.

23

Fifty percent in the last presidential election, however you look at it.

Talking to some of my pals in the States leads me to believe that Bush is the right man for the people now.
Most people seem not really to care deeply about Iraq and are willing to shrug off the largest deficit in history. Bush fudging on the health care budget by underestimating the cost by about 35 percent gets another shrug (although try that in a real company).
Most observers agree that Bush didn’t get the majority of the popular vote, but people just let it be (yes, it was legal, but it still stank).
Bush either lied about the Iraq threat or misrepresented it (Colin certainly did) but no one seems to give a shit (or you don’t think he did, but others do; so what?). A bad man is gone from power; we Americans don’t care really; we don’t feel any safer. War crimes? Not interested; whatever the politicians do is OK. The ability to speak English well is hardly a qualification for “greatness.” Keeping up good international relations is unimportant.
I could go on…it seems that a trained ape could be in the Oval Office and the US public would accept it, as long as the cable works…

24

Fifty percent in the last presidential election, however you look at it.

Talking to some of my pals in the States leads me to believe that Bush is the right man for the people now.
Most people seem not really to care deeply about Iraq and are willing to shrug off the largest deficit in history. Bush fudging on the health care budget by underestimating the cost by about 35 percent gets another shrug (although try that in a real company).
Most observers agree that Bush didn’t get the majority of the popular vote, but people just let it be (yes, it was legal, but it still stank).
Bush either lied about the Iraq threat or misrepresented it (Colin certainly did) but no one seems to give a shit (or you don’t think he did, but others do; so what?). A bad man is gone from power; we Americans don’t care really; we don’t feel any safer. War crimes? Not interested; whatever the politicians do is OK. The ability to speak English well is hardly a qualification for “greatness.” Keeping up good international relations is unimportant.
I could go on…it seems that a trained ape could be in the Oval Office and the US public would accept it, as long as the cable works…[/quote]

uh, not sure if you just don’t know what goes on in the us or what, but there’s a lot of people here who hate bush and were against the war in iraq. but then again, i’m sure you were resorting to the time-honored tradition of only refering to those who disagree with you as stupid. :slight_smile: the millions of americans who agree with you can’t be stupid. or can they? does that make you stupid if you agree with millions of stupid americans? hmm, the math gets fuzzy here…

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[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]
Most observers agree that Bush didn’t get the majority of the popular vote, but people just let it be (yes, it was legal, but it still stank). [/quote]

hey, what kind of voting system are they putting in place in the new european constitution? oh, that’s right, it’s even LESS tied to population than the us electoral college.

it seems maybe the americans who can accept voting systems not directly tied to population are the sophisticated ones here…

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Couple of things.

  1. Being a good investor doesn’t qualify you as a social scientist or philosopher. he has the money to indulge his personal beliefs, that’s all.

  2. What many people don’t realise about Soros is - he was the sales guy! He was good at getting clients. The research was done by Jim…err…wassisname… “investment biker” guy… err… Rogers, that’s it. Jim Rogers… and latterly, Stanley Druckenmiller.

I think JR and SD have said that Soros’ value was less in knowing what to buy than in knowing when to make the really big bets and when to be more cautious.

Anyone who has read Soros’ books on finance will realise that his has little new to say. And what he does say on these topics has been better written by other people.

27

“Less informed” is quite a subjective term, but I would agree that the public is definitely better brain-washed than they’ve been in a long time. The Republican propoganda machine (Karl Rove, officially; Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Asshole and Colmes, etc unofficially) has really got a handle on how to shape public opinion. They’ve got the so-called liberal media eating out of their hands by using the carrot of sensationalism. Report things our way, we’ll give you a juicy headline! Gore claimed he invented the Internet! Paul Wellstone’s taking away people’s farms and destroying jobs! Max Cleland’s a traitor! Oh and don’t forget: BLOWJOB IN THE WHITEHOUSE!!! BLOWJOB IN THE WHITEHOUSE!!! GOD ALMIGHTY, BLOWJOB IN THE WHITEHOUSE!!! (Oh and by the way longest economic expansion in US history.)

Also, as the title of this thread suggests, they’ve become absolute masters of double-speak. “The Democratic Party is the party of mind control. The Republican Party is the party of freedom.” (Limbaugh’s words.) “Foxs News: Fair and balanced journalism”

Fair and balanced??? Ever heard Bill O’Reilly listen patiently as someone expresses an opposing point of view? How can you be “fair and balanced” while you’re yelling “SHUT UP! You’re out of the box!” Or Hannity (is that the bastard’s name?) and his strawman liberal Colmes? If you’re interested, I’ll give you a list of outrageous distortions given as “facts” by him that’ll set your head spinning! (Example: the trillion-dollar Reagan deficit was actually the Democrats’ fault.)

The public doesn’t want “fair and balanced”, but it sure likes the sound of that. Meanwhile, what it really wants is sensation. It wants sound-bites. It wants life to be like a Hollywood movie. Awareness of this reality is what has allowed Karl Rove and his cronies to develop an extremely effective mass mind-control, all the while bleating about the supposedly “liberal media”'s grip on the public’s collective mind.

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Haha whatever Vay:

The Democrats had the run of the country since Roosevelt. Now it’s our turn. Give us some time. Look what we have accomplished in three short years? School vouchers have finally broken the public opinion deadlock and are set to free poor students from teacher’s unions and lazy officials. The Middle East is being transformed. The US economy is roaring back. I don’t like the deficit but I do buy into the starve the government approach. More tax cuts faster more now now now! What are you afraid of? Jump on board and see where we can take you. After all, where is the shrill denunciation of the US$7 trillion that liberal democrats have spent on social programs that have made NO dent in test scores, welfare, etc. but when being implemented were greatly responsible for black urban and white rural poverty and dysfunctionalism by literally punishing marriage and responsible family upbrining. Took a Republican Giuliani to make the streets of NYC so safe that people are once again able to venture out. ALL these are Republican accomplishments. The democrats stopped being the party of ideas 40 years ago. That title now goes to the Republicans for their creative and realistic solutions to problems while the democrats find themselves unable to reform due to their being beholden to special interests such as teachers unions, trial lawyers and the race baiting industry. WHERE are their solutions to these problems? WHY won’t they consider privatizing part of social security when the returns are 1 percent? WHAT are their solutions for education except to throw more money down a sinkhole. WHY spend more on Job Corps when it costs US$16K per worker, does not guarantee that the person placed will last long at their job and when serious employers turn to temp agencies instead which would provide this training for free?

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Oh yes, those nasty Republicans have everyone hoodwinked with their devious ways. How ever do they get away with it?

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IYBF,

Knowing when to make the big bets and when to be more cautious is the beginning and the end of investment.

31

I thought I already answered this question. You know, sensationalism and all that.

32

I was watching The Insider on AXN the other evening. It took 4 hours to watch from beginning to the end, and they cut the movie just so as to fit in more adds. It struck me as I was watching how fucked the world really is and what a moron I am myself.

If big tobacco can go to such extraordinary lengths to supress the truth, just imagin what big oil, and big guns can and would do to supress it. Then I reflected on the irony of watching big TV drip feed me this movie whilst injecting me with commercials. And the worst thing about it, I’ve seen the movie 4 times and I watched it until 2:15 am. I must admit in the end it was more out of morbid curiosity than captivation by the movie. However, as I was brushing my teeth for bed, I could here big TV rubbing their hands together thinking out loud, “I wonder how many morons we can trap with this morbid curiosity thing.”

33

Do you really have such a low opinion of yourself?

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[quote=“Fox”]IYBF,

Knowing when to make the big bets and when to be more cautious is the beginning and the end of investment.[/quote]

Err… either you misunderstand my point or you are new to investing.

Its ONE PART of it - risk management. But it is most DEFINITELY NOT the beginning and the end. You have to know which bets to make!!!

There are two questions in investment - 1) what to buy and 2) how much to buy. Soros was mainly concerned with the second question. The guys who zero-ed in on opportunities like the Ringgit, Sterling, and the emerging market opportunities were, as I said, Jim Rogers and Stanley Druckenmiller.

Soros was basically backing their judgement and winning clients.

And you can make the case that Soros was not even particularly sophisticated at the “How much?” question. He had some big wins - sterling, ringgit (that everyone remembers.) But he has taken a beating elsewhere - 1987 crash, the HKD, and he got stuck with a lot of bad tech names recently, too. He certainly had guts as a speculator. He had a few big scores - but was that great judgement on his part, just dumb luck, or even dumb courage?

I make the point to show that Soros (the investor) was by no means a one-man-show. And indeed many (if not most) investment professionals would regard Jim Rogers as the real brains. Jim rogers, though, has no public political agenda - though he could undoubtedly afford to buy one!

To see my point, ask yourself how many investment banks run their operations without a research function?

As for Vay and the Republican spin-machine. Don’t forget that across the Atlantic is the “king-of-spin” Tony Blair. A left-wing politician, akin to a Clinton-Democrat. Again, its not a party-political point.

35

I would disagree with this statement somewhat. Although he definitely is not politically active like Soros, I sensed some political overtones in his blog at his website, www.jimrogers.com, which documents his around-the-world journey is his special mercedes. Look at the Singapore section (the 8/04/2001 blog). Judging from this writing, I would surmise that his politics are close to that of his boss. Although, yes, he is much quieter.

Chewy

36

[quote=“Chewycorns”]Judging from this writing, I would surmise that his politics are close to that of his boss. Although, yes, he is much quieter.
[/quote]

Well, who knows? Maybe the old relationship is still there. Jim Rogers has the ideas - Soros does the marketing…??? :wink:

37

IYBF,

When to make the big bets suggests that one understands the research and has the balls to take the plunge. It is the beginning and the end of investment. If it were any different we’d all be multi-billionaires.

In fact, it has little to do with risk management as I understand it. Risk management to me involves hedging, and diversification, balancing your liquid assets against the bricks and mortar variety.

What we are really talking about here is somebody who is prepared to take a huge punt. Risk managent is what he is doing with all his other assets relative to that punt.

Anyway lets save that for another thread.

I was interested in reading today that after they had the independent inquiry into the intelligence failures of 9/11 the most interesting sections about Saudi Arabia’s involvement were kept under raps by the Bush administration. Now that’s what I would call risk management. Only god knows how much of the inquiry into intelligence failures re. WMD will be kept under raps also.

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FOX (F): I

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How’s this for supposed Republican doublespeak. See this excerpt from Rumsfeld’s “it’s all about oil” discussion with Tariq Aziz in 1985. But wait, I thought that Rumsfeld was all fine and dandy with dictatorships back in 1985 and only found a respect for democracy just recently, but NO… read on…

With Arab militants pouring into Iraq to help carry out attacks such as the bombing of the UN headquarters in August, it

40

I can’t see what your senseless post and mine really have in common. Mine is all about risk management and yours is about your last trip to Burger King.

Taking a huge punt doesn’t mean taking a huge risk relative to the management of his other assets. You of all people ought know that. Try thinking a little before posting. It’s not important to hit me back fast, just hard is OK.