On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sep 24, 2009, at 3:32 PM, raghu wrote: > >> George Soros >> admits this quite openly. He should know! > > Never believe anything a master trader says about the markets. There's a > good chance he's talking his book.
Your skepticism is reasonable enough. In this case, I personally don't believe Soros is talking his book. >From what I know of the man's biography, I believe that he is at a point in his life where he cares more about his intellectual legacy than about making more money. And he makes considerably more sense than Greenspan and Bernanke. But of course that's a matter of judgment: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22756 ---------------------------------------------snip About regulation, we have to start by recognizing that the prevailing view is false, that markets actually are bubble-prone. They create bubbles. Therefore, they have to be regulated. The authorities have to accept responsibility for preventing asset bubbles from growing too big. They've expressly rejected that, saying that if the markets don't know, how can the regulators know? And, of course, they can't. They're bound to be wrong, but they get feedback from the market, and then they can make adjustments. Now, it is not enough to regulate the money supply. You have to regulate credit. And that means using tools that have largely fallen into disuse. Of course you have margin requirements, minimum capital requirements; but you actually have to vary them to counteract the prevailing mood of the market, because markets do have moods. It should be recognized that exuberance actually is quite rational. *When I see a bubble beginning, forming, I jump on it because that's how I make money. So it's perfectly rational.* (emphasis by raghu) -raghu. -- "I bought some batteries, but they weren't included." - Steven Wright _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
