I developed a theory of salesmanship based on the principle that one must not on any account identify oneself with the merchandise one is selling. Se… - George Soros

Americans, sadly, are now victims who have turned into perpetrators. Indeed, since September 2001, the war on terror has claimed more innocent victims than those terrorist attacks. This fact is unrecognized at home because the victims of the war on terror are not Americans. But the rest of the world does not draw the same distinction, and world opinion has turned against America.

Steve Kroft: You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian. And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.
George Soros: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that's when my character was made.
Steve Kroft: In what way?
George Soros: That one should think ahead. One should understand and anticipate events and when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a very personal experience of evil.
Steve Kroft: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews. I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
George Soros: Not at all. Maybe as a child you don't see the connection, but it created no problem at all.
Steve Kroft: No feeling of guilt? For example, "I'm Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there." None of that?
George Soros: Well, of course I could be on the other side, or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was—well, actually, in a funny way, it's just like in markets: that if I weren't there—of course, I wasn't doing it—somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator. The property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.

In economics, contingent, time- and context-bound theories may yield more useful explanations and predictions than timeless and universal generalizations based on ungrounded assumptions.