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| The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means | 
 enlarge | Author: George Soros
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $11.87
You Save: $11.08 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 616
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 1586486837
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.0973
EAN: 9781586486839
ASIN: 1586486837
Publication Date: May 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Huge Mountain of Moose Manure October 15, 2008
10 out of 28 found this review helpful
ON STRIKE UNTIL AMAZON STOPS DELETING FAVORABLE VOTES FROM FANS AND COUNTING NEGATIVE VOTES FROM THOSE WHO HATE THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE BOOK BEING REVIEWED MORE THAN THEY CARE ABOUT THE REVIEW.
I have lost patience for this kind of book. I recommend the other ten books instead (and the last two, which I wrote, are free online, so I am not pushing them for purchase)
1) Our economy went into the gutter when Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), then Chair for Banking, slipped a 200+ page bill written by lobbyists into a must fund larger bill, with the result that no senators read it (as they did not read the Patriot Act), and it deregulated--completely--the financial marketplace, ending the walls between banking (which lends on tangibles) and investment (which speculates on intangibles).
2) DERIVATIVES is code for fantasy cash. I was not smart enough to see this myself, but Bogle, Soros, Buffet, Perot, Nader, they all saw it, they tried to brief it, and in the case of Nader, got laughed off the Hill. Sub-prime mortgages were the match that lit the fire, not the straw itself.
3) Goldman Sachs is forever, Washington's two criminal parties have been bought and paid for. Rubin did not bail out Mexico. He bailed out Wall Street's bad investments in Mexico. and Bill Clinton for sure understood this, and leveraged the whole thing the whole time with placement of his friends in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae where they enriched themselves and contributed heavily to Clinton's Library and other endeavors.
The market did not fail. Congress failed. BOTH parties are criminal parties, and I am personally outraged that Americans are not burning tires in the streets demanding that at a minimum three other parties be heard by the public in these debates. Most of America is utterly clueless about the FACT that the League of Women Voters was replaced by a Republican-Democratic Presidential Debate Commission precisely to exclude Independent, Green, Reform, Libertarian, and other candidates.
With all due respect for their accomplishments, the two candidates for President today are relative puppets being managed by *clowns* who are owned by Wall Street carpetbaggers and the crooked parties that have effectively killed democracy in this once-great Republic.
I am, to be utterly candid, sick and tired of Soros telling us how smart he is when he actually does not care at all about the public interest. This is the last book written by Soros that I will waste my time on.
Other much more relevant books to our situation:
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story
The Informant: A True Story
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
I am ANGRY. Soros is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Simiarly, Buffet means well, but he is working this for himself, not us. It was idiocy to approve the bail-out. That should have been a freeze, a moratorium on all foreclosures (10,000 a day) as well as all evictions, a capping of interest at 10%, an emergency fund focusing on INDIVIDUALS, and a mandated public forum post-election with ALL relevant documents posted online for scrutiny ("put enough eyeballs on it, no bug is invisible").
This election is so fraught with fraud on so many levels, that the financial crisis, in my judgement is the third and least of our problems. Electoral fraud and the criminal misbehavior of BOTH Republicans and Democrats is problem #1. The two dozen plus secessionist movements being led by Kirkpatrick Sale are problem #2 because they have LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES. I was reflecting on this today, and realized that an honest man today has three choices:
1. Refuse to support our dysfunctional government and support secession.
2. Join a crime family and drop out of the fraudulent "legal" economy.
3. Be a gerbil, a farm animal, and let Wall Street--including the author of this book--enjoy life on our backs for a few more years.
I did not read this book, nor buy it. I do not do this often, but this seems as good a place to denounce Soros, the horse that brought him (Wall Street), and the morons in Congress that let these thieves run wild.
I expect plenty of reflexive negative votes but for those of you with an open mind, take the time to read the varied reviews of the ten books I recommend instead of this one, and trust your own judgment.
Mark Lewis had it right: these folks think nothing of "exploding the client." That's us. This author was right up there with them, step by step, and did nothing for We the People--his best shot was to support the "least evil" (in his mind) party and to be silent as Bush-Cheney destroyed our military, our economy, and most grieviously, our global moral standing.
It's time we drop kick Wall Street into the ocean, introduce Open Money, and invest only in local tangible hard-money options. Ron Paul has it right--everyone else is a traitor to the Constitution and to the Republic--Paulson means well but he and all of these folks live in a "closed society" that is completely out of touch with OUR reality.
 Quick Read May 23, 2008
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you're looking for specifics on where to invest in 2008/2009, this isn't a book for you.
Book is short. Reflexivity is a nice idea/theorie, but he never shows a mathematical example. He does mention that the market participants can reinforce a trend and so on, explaining that markets don't go to equilibrium. He fails to mention natural disasters, drought, or market manipulation as other real world reasons that economic models don't work.
First half of the book gives you an idea of how he thinks, the past that has influenced his ideas, and good examples of the basis for the current credit crisis. There is a section on history of the markets, boom in 60s, stagflation 70s, reagan 80s, and so on...
Second half of the book is the meat. (Take note of the charts, very timely, and more informative than anything you'll see on the news) Lots of info and a timeline on the spread of the crisis. The pearl in all this, is that the economy runs on credit, and with credit lending damaged, basically even if the crisis is averted, limited credit will hamstring the economy for the next 3-7 years. (he does not draw any comparissons to Japan, which was a combo corporate and consumer credit bubble with a similar but worse fate. Lack of credit and slow growth occured in Japan in the 10 years afterwards... read "The bubble economy" for more on that.)
He busts on the current administration, lack of leadership etc. Well a real estate bubble and booming oil bubble while most other industries fall behind is nothing to be proud of... If he's right, and all we've done for the last eight years is create paper wealth and run a deficit, then we're going to pay for it over the next 8 years and it's gonna bite.
One thing I don't buy in what he writes... He talks about a super bubble, and it being based on US finance, since Bretton woods agreement etc... Historically economies expand during periods where scientific discoveries can be applied to industry or our everyday lives. Booms created by autos, railroads, electricity, computing, plastics/chemicals... Then we hit a bust. The Feds job is to offset the busts and the govt basically spends on infrastructure during the busts to keep everything going. Now that inovation, with a huge economy, and a sound military, is what gives the dollar, our goods, dominance on the world stage, not some piece of paper signed 50 years ago.
He is right in that the US is sucking in value right now, as wealth funds save the banks, and the Fed gives out credit to save the system. Basically anyone holding US Bonds overseas is taking a bath to keep our system going. I think it's this short term Dollar/Bank moves, that has him upset, but he's blaming Reagan for it... Eh... I think it's more a banking problem with the current administration turning a blind eye.
Look at it this way. If it wasn't for the housing bubble... adding 4% to GDP or more each year... We'd still be stuck in recession since 2000... Bushes big problem is that it just popped on his watch. Now they're mailing checks worth 1% GDP just to keep us "Technically" out of a recession... Buying time until someone else comes into office and then it's "Their problem"... LOL
No mention of the new financial markets in Dubai or oil trading there.
Does mention the Gulf Arab states now reinvesting in their own countries and industries... Which is really happening.
Say's he's bullish on China and India, that the china bubble is in there early stages... (I think it's late) and he looses money when their markets tank this year... At least he's honest and admits it.
Definately worth buying (used) but skip the first half of the book. Flip to page 79 and start there. Read ALL of the rest of it.
 Do not Bother May 23, 2008
8 out of 34 found this review helpful
Soros has lost touch with the markets, is just about all I can add to "Read and Think"`s excellent review.
Some interesting insights from a suspect individual July 17, 2008
8 out of 20 found this review helpful
I dislike George Soros. He takes billions out of the pockets of US and British tax payers and "repays" us with his hideous [...] propaganda and falsehoods. Compare this with John Templeton, who was a signficantly BETTER investor than Soros was, and put his money in underpriviledged parts of the world to help build them up. Templeton also used his money to create more value in the world through his humanitarian organization and Templeton Prize for worthy people like Mother Teresa.
I learned new things from Soros' analysis of "where we are, how we got here and why this might be the end of a period of stability" and think that's worth the read. On the other hand, his prescriptions and remedies are highly suspect. As another review wrote, it's good that Soros wrote this down so we can better understand what lurks in the mind of this creepy guy. (I believe he's one of Obama's puppet masters, so it's important to learn as much as we can before the November elections).
Investment books talk about how doctors and other professionals don't make good investors. I think the same can be said that good investors don't necessarily tranfer their skills into other areas. The Theory of Reflexivity may work for Soros, but it's a repackaging of LOTS of other people's work, only in a dumbed down, non-testable way. This book won't be getting Soros the respect that he apparently seeks from professional philosophers.
disapointing July 28, 2008
8 out of 33 found this review helpful
Written in poor English, very confusing book. I read Finance and Economics books every week and this one was the worst ever. Almost fell asleep on every page,
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