George Soros Quotes

I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership qualities, but she is leading Europe in the wrong direction.

Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.

The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

We in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are.

The assumption of perfect knowledge is very far from reality ... a lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional.

American supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today.

We [at Soros Fund Management] use options and more exotic derivatives sparingly. We try to catch new trends early and in later stages we try to catch trend reversals. Therefore, we tend to stabilize rather than destabilize the market. We are not doing this as a public service. It is our style of making money.

When it comes to social consequences, they've got all different people acting in different ways, very difficult to even have a proper criterion of success. So, it's a difficult task.

Market prices are always wrong.

Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.

This is the joint responsibility of everyone who was involved in the introduction of the euro without understanding the consequences. When the euro was introduced, the regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital. And the European Central Bank discounted all government bonds on equal terms. So commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate the bonds of the weaker countries to earn a few extra basis points.

However, even a strong government can't perform miracles. It needs money from the taxpayers.

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios ... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

I contend that financial markets never reflect the underlying reality accurately; they always distort it in some way or another and the distortions find expression in market prices. Those distortions can, occasionally, find ways to affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect.

If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.

Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and U.S. government bonds into real assets.

I think there's a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they're not sufficient because markets don't look after social needs.

There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.

The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).

Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states.

The lower interest rates fueled housing and consumption booms in countries such as Spain and Ireland. At the same time, Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, tightened its belt and became more competitive. All this led to a wide divergence in economic performance. Europe became divided into creditor and debtor countries.

Market fundamentalists recognize that the role of the state in the economy is always disruptive, inefficient, and generally has negative connotations. This leads them to believe that the market mechanism can take care of all the problems.

There is a powerful case for the market mechanism, but it is not that markets are perfect; it is that in a world dominated by imperfect understanding, markets provide an efficient feedback mechanism for evaluating the results of one's decisions and correcting mistakes.

Financial markets ... resent any kind of government interference but they hold a belief deep down that if conditions get really rough the authorities will step in.

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

The financial markets play an active role in determining what's going to happen, how the economy is going to function.

The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

To be successful, you need leisure. You need time hanging heavily on your hands.

The world order needs a major overhaul.

I am not well qualified to criticize the theory of rational expectations and the efficient market hypothesis because as a market participant I considered them so unrealistic that I never bothered to study them.

Hedge funds are a very efficient way of managing money. But there are clearly some risks. Hedge funds use credit and credit is a source of instability. Transactions involving credit should be regulated.

To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.

The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend towards equilibrium, and ... discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because the do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it.

It's not whether you're right or wrong, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

I am for maximum supervision and minimum regulation.

There is no doubt that the countries that now have a very large debt have not introduced the kind of structural reforms that Germany did and are therefore at a disadvantage. But the problem is that this disadvantage is becoming even more pronounced through the punitive policies in place.

Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.

To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states.

Money values do not simply mirror the state of affairs in the real world; valuation is a positive act that makes an impact on the course of events. Monetary and real phenomena are connected in a reflexive fashion; that is, they influence each other mutually. The reflexive relationship manifests itself most clearly in the use and abuse of credit.

Changeless society is characterized by the absense of alternatives.

I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.

These public-private partnerships are very, very dangerous. The most rotten part of the financial system in the US consisted of the government sponsored entities. They really kicked off this crisis. The state should set the rules and enforce them but not become involved as a market player.

Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade - and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity.

Now look at the ideology of American supremacy. It has a solid foundation in reality; namely, the United States is the dominant power in the world. The current government believes the United States ought to use this dominant position to impose its will on the world. That is the misconception. This approach is not what made America great. America did not arrive at its dominant position by imposing its will on the world.
My position is that America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter - and that we may be wrong at times, even if we are powerful. We must be open to criticism and respect divergent and different views and interests.

The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.

If every rich person gave 50 percent of their wealth to charity, I would not say they should pay more taxes.

Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed.

The very first sentence of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President's annual laying out to Congress of the country's security objectives) reads, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise."
The assumptions behind this statement are false on two counts. First, there is no single sustainable model for national success. Second, the American model, which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because our success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of the global capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.

In the case of a meltdown, the regulatory authorities may find themselves obliged to step in to preserve the integrity of the system. It is in that light that the authorities have both a right and an obligation to supervise and regulate derivative instruments.

I'm not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.

I used to be opposed to the idea of social entrepreneurship. I said let business be business, and philanthropy be philanthropy. Keep the two separate, don't mix it up, and this is what I did, and I did that rather successfully, but I now recognize that actually you do need to mix it up and I think there is room for social entrepreneurship.

If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can't be maintained forever.

Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected

I would prefer not to be involved in party politics.

It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.

Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.

I am not a Zionist, nor am I am a practicing Jew, but I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and a deep concern for the survival of Israel.

I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it's certainly not safe and it's not going to last forever.

I don't use my money to gain political influence for my private interests, which is what many rich people do, and what, in a sense, market fundamentalism does, because it is in the interests of people who have a lot of money to have as little taxes as possible.

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.

My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.

A global economy is characterized not only by the free movement of goods and services but, more important, by the free movement of ideas and of capital.

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.

Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.

My conceptual framework, which basically emphasizes the importance of misconceptions, makes me extremely critical of my own decisions. I know that I am bound to be wrong, and therefore am more likely to correct my own mistakes.

There is no point in being confident and having a small position.

The ultimate asset bubble is gold.

One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs.

The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.

The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.

Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.

Increase your bets when you are confident and scale down your positions when you don't have conviction.

We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.

The key problem is the debt restructuring in the euro zone. As long as the debt burden is not reduced, there is no chance of the weaker EU countries regaining competitiveness.

At present, the developed countries condescend to the developing ones.

I think that my foundation uses the money better than the government does. In any event, I do pay taxes.

Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.

You need a government that believes in government. It also believes in markets and wants to give markets the best, the greatest opportunity, but is trying to govern well.

The dark comes before dawn. The financial markets are under great pressure because of the lack of leadership during the transition period.

It is better to have a cat and mouse game where the cat has the upper hand than a cat and mouse game where the mice are ruling. Because the latter means that the market participants are given free range. That was actually the big misconception of our national hero Ronald Reagan, who always talked about the magic of the market.

A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.

There is no question that a breakup of the euro would be very damaging, very costly, both financially and politically. And the biggest loss would be incurred by Germany. Germans have to bear in mind that, effectively, they have suffered practically no losses so far. Transfers have all been in the form of loans, and it is only when the loans are not repaid that real losses will be incurred.

At times of recession, running a budget deficit is highly desirable. Once the economy begins to recover, you have to balance the budget. But it will also need additional revenues. Should the government not receive them, we will all get punished with higher interest rates.

Market prices are always wrong in the sense that they present a biased view of the future.

The more comprehensive and convincing a debt reduction program is, the less likely it is to fail. And remember, just as Germany is grateful to America for the Marshall Plan, Italy would be grateful to Germany for helping it lower its refinancing costs.

Fundamental analysis seeks to establish how underlying values are reflected in stock prices, whereas the theory of reflexivity shows how stock prices can influence underlying values

If we care about universal principles such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law, we cannot leave them to the care of market forces; we must establish some other institutions to safeguard them.

I call government that works the best for people open society, which is basically just another more general term for a democracy that is - you call it maybe a liberal democracy. It's not only majority rule but also respect for minorities and minority opinions and the rule of law. So it's really a sort of institutional democracy.

My peculiarity is that I don't have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions.

America felt victorious and generous after World War II. They had also learned from the mistakes after World War I when they imposed punishment on Germany. What became of Germany? A Nazi dictatorship which threatened the world. Today's Germany doesn't feel as prosperous and generous as America then. But actually, Germany still is very prosperous.

In politics, manipulating reality can take presidence over finding reality.

I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes

It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).

I commissioned two political experts to advise me about what I could do to oppose the re-election of President Bush.

The world is looking to us for leadership. We have provided it in the past; the main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong in the world today is that we are not providing it in the present.

Political debate is more interested in manipulating the truth, than finding the truth.

Once a trend is established it tends to persist and to run it's full course.