Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Aug. 16th, 2011 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malenkiyscotGeorge Soros explains the European sovereign debt crisis. Written more than a year ago, but still very relevant. Highly recommended.
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Re: Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Date: 2011-08-21 11:08 am (UTC)1) Self-fulfilling explanations. One should distinguish between explanations, forecasts, and proposed solutions.
Explanations, IMHO, can be self-fulfilling only inasmuch they present a certain model of interpreting the past events that
may affect our (i.e. the markets') perception of the future. I do not think at all that it is the case here: the panic is already
with us, different interpretations of the past events can hardly affect it.
This is not to say that the past events themselves, unlike the explanations, were not self-fulfilling.
But that's just the usual market behaviour. Soros himself notes that markets are not always rational, and it may have grave effects
on people's lives.
As an aside: a fancier term for "self-fulfillment" in market behavior is a "positive feedback loop". The most prominent examples
of which are bubbles and panics. A less known example is the so-called deflationary spiral. That's something Soros is alluding to
several times.
As far as his solutions are concerned, they do seem "self-fulfilling" to me in the following sense: in the current European political
climate they seem to be unimplementable. So if he is betting against the Euro (or more - for the collapse of the whole European
monetary system), then, say, every (in)decision among the European leaders that fails to get closer to implementing those solutions will
benefit Soros. The latest Merkle-Sarkozy meeting is a glaring example. However, unless there are more easily implementable solutions,
it does not mean that he is wrong.
2) Soros and the Pound crisis. I am very weary of those who say that Soros caused the devaluation. If not for the gaping weaknesses
of the ERM he would not be able to do anything. And if not him, someone else would have noticed the problems. As positive feedback
loops go, when one exists any random event in the right direction will set it off.
3) Krugman. In the post you have provided a link to I do not see him proposing any explanations or solutions.
I followed the links from that post and there, too, failed to see any coherent explanations. I'm sure he has them, and I'm also
sure that they are not that different from what Soros wrote. I am also rather sure that his solutions (if he has them) would be
heavily influenced by his ideology and thus be unworkable. It is no secret that among many world-caliber economists his Nobel Prize
is considered ideologically motivated (like Solzhenitsyn's, Arafat's, or Obama's).
Make no mistake, I am all for controlling bubbles and panics, the problem is noone really knows how to achieve it on a consistent
basis without such heavy market regulations that essentially would make the markets meaningless.
Re: Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Date: 2011-08-25 11:01 pm (UTC)Ну почему unimplementable, например ECB действительно стал покупать Испанские и Итальянские бонды как и предлагал Сорос.
2. Я не говорил что Сорос вызвал девальвацию. Она неизбежно произошла бы и без него, но процесс занял бы больше времени и протекал бы более болезненно.
3. А я и не искал решений в блоге Кругмана. Любые экономические решения всегда сильно подверженны идеологическому влиянию, а будут они работать или нет – не мне судить. Кстати большего противника свободного рынка чем Сорос найти непросто. В блоге Кругмана я искал описания ситуации в Европе сейчас чтобы сравнить ее с тем как видел ее Сорос год назад.
Re: Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Date: 2011-09-01 04:47 pm (UTC)Предложения и почему в своей речи Бернанке ничем не удивил:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/opinion/bernankes-perry-problem.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
О Соросе. Написанно в 1998 году:
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/soros.html
Re: Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Date: 2011-09-18 04:15 pm (UTC)Yes, the article was written a year ago, but the panic was already setting in. Here's The Economist cover for May 2010.
> Но интересно, что движет такого человека как Сорос писать подобные статьи?
Who cares? Maybe he us ashamed of his wealth, or family reasons - he is hardly alone. Take Buffett, for example.
>Кстати большего противника свободного рынка чем Сорос найти непросто.
Agreed. [Neither he is a close friend of Israel (but that's widespread among American Jewish elite)]. But he compartmentalizes very well: one thing is how he thinks things should be, quite another, how he thinks they really are. The former is for the public, the latter - to act upon. Again, I do think there are plenty of people like this.
>Вот еще 2 ссылки. Опять Кругман. Мне было интересно, надеюсь и тебе понравится.
Thanks.
Re: Sovereign Debt Crisis Explained
Date: 2011-09-30 02:26 pm (UTC)Я купил книгу Сороса “The crash of 2008 and what it means” где-то год назад, но так и не дочитал . Я думаю что он гораздо больше других пытается повлиять на ситуацию и верит что он может это сделать. И это основанно на central idea of his conceptual framework:
http://books.google.co.il/books?id=SHlT3IRfMOYC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=George+Soros+The+crash+of+2008+and+what+it+means+This+brings+me+to+the+central+idea+in+my+conceptual+framework:+I+contend&source=bl&ots=pa39EQR80f&sig=3NFd3pb355TigTeq7i40E-wgqiM&hl=iw#v=onepage&q&f=false
The horror, the horror... Страх. Но кто-то паникует, а кто-то оптимист:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/OECD-Optimistic-About-Economic-Growth-for-US-Europe--94951219.html
А может они читали Сороса?