George Soros Quotes

Before the invasion of Iraq, we could project overwhelming power in any part of the world. We cannot do so any more because we are bogged down in Iraq. Iran and North Korea are moving ahead with their nuclear programs at full speed and our hand in dealing with them has been greatly weakened.

Después del colapso de 2008, pude hacer arreglos para que casi un millón de escolares de Nueva York, cuyas familias recibían asistencia social o cupones de alimentos, recibieran un cheque por $200, sin nada a cambio.

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.

Companies earn their profits by exploiting their environment. Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment. This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it.

"Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to..." (1995)

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis. ... I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.

An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles in order to survive. We are being sorely tested, first by 9/11 and then by President Bush's response. To pass the test we must face reality instead of finding solace in false certainties. This election transcends party loyalties. Our future as an open society depends on resisting the Siren's song.

Nationalism, far from being reversed, made further headway. The biggest and most frightening setback came in India, where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir – a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship.

The main obstacle to further progress on the resource curse is China, and to a lesser extent India.

If we re-elect Bush, we are endorsing the Bush doctrine. And then we are off to a vicious circle of escalating violence in the world. And I think, you know, terrorism, counter-terrorism, it's a very scary spectacle to me. If we reject him, then we are effectively rejecting the Bush doctrine. Because he was elected on a platform of a more humble foreign policy. Then we can go back to a more humble foreign policy. And treat this episode as an aberration. We have to pay a heavy price. You know, 100 billion dollars a year in Iraq. We can't get out of that. We mustn't get out of it. But still, we can then regain the confidence of the world, and our rightful place as leaders of the world, working to make the world a better place.

We are losing the values that have made America great. The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was such a horrendous event that it required a strong response. But the President committed a fundamental error in thinking: the fact that the terrorists are manifestly evil does not make whatever counter-actions we take automatically good. What we do to combat terrorism may also be wrong. Recognizing that we may be wrong is the foundation of an open society.

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.

Let's deal first with your general theory of reflexivity.
Essentially, it has to do with the role of the thinking participant, and the relationship between his thinking and the events in which he participates. I believe that a thinking participant is in a very difficult position, because he is trying to understand a situation in which he is one of the actors. Traditionally, we think of understanding as essentially a passive role, and participating is an active role. In truth, the two roles interfere with each other, which makes it impossible for the participant to base any decisions on pure or perfect knowledge.
Classical economic theory assumes that market participants act on the basis of perfect knowledge. That assumption is false. The participants' perceptions influence the market in which they participate, but the market action also influences the participants' perceptions. They cannot obtain perfect knowledge of the market because their thinking is always affecting the market and the market is affecting their thinking. This makes analysis of market behavior much harder than it would be if the assumption of perfect knowledge were valid.

The world order needs a major overhaul.

To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.