Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-06, 19:06, said:
Does it bother anybody else that the sleaziest billionaire of all, George Soros, who has countless times taken down various countries' economies for his own profit, and currently has a huge bet on America to fail, is trying to make sure that Hillary Clinton gets elected?
Richard has already pointed out that you are spouting right wing delusions as fact, without apparently any interest in knowing the underlying truth. May I suggest that you google George Soros British Pound.
Now, reality is often more nuanced than anything you will have read on breitbart or heard on talk radio or wherever else you get your 'ideas' from, so maybe a quick summary may help. Everything I write can be verified, tho probably not on your favourite sites.
The UK joined a monetary scheme (the Exchange Rate Mechanism) whereby it was determined to keep its currency at a particular ratio to the German Mark. However, inflation in the UK was far, far higher than in Germany, while at the same time interest rates were low. The only way the UK could stay in this exchange rate arrangement was by buying billions of pounds worth of its own currency, to artificially create demand in the market place, and thus keep the pound higher than it ought to be.
Soros was one of those who understood what was going on. He bet that the UK government would eventually realize that continuing to spend billions of pounds to keep the pound artificially high was absurd and, more important politically, doomed to failure. The only way out was to exit the exchange rate agreement, to allow the pound to be traded freely. Given the economic realities of the German and British economies at the time, the pound would lose value as soon as it was freely traded, without the UK government's support...which was the spending of unsustainable amounts of money. The decision to do so was kept secret until it was done, in order to minimize speculation.
However, the writing was on the wall provided that one had the ability to read the situation, as few did.
Soros had the resources to take a very large short position on the UK pound, betting, literally, that the UK government would come to its senses, albeit only after acting irrationally for some time.
He won the bet and attained instant fame.
Now, imagine you are a UK politician, in the government, and you are having to deal with the fallout from having wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers' money, and to have to top it off by devaluing the pound, admitting, in effect, that you have been wasting money. Wouldn't it be nice to find some 'sleazy' billionaire to blame? And given the fiscal illiteracy of most of the tabloid press and the citizenry, and the virtual non-existence of any detailed, nuanced media presentations, is it any surprise that Soros was blamed for the devaluation?
Soros had nothing to do with the devaluation. He happened to guess, correctly, that it was going to happen, and he showed remarkable fortitude in being willing to bet just about all he had at his disposal accordingly. He saw that it was about to rain, and he placed rain barrels out to catch the rain water. He would have looked silly, and lost a lot of money, had the sky remained blue and the rain had not fallen. But his placing the rain barrels didn't cause the rain to fall.
In essence, he acted exactly as would any capitalist. He took a big risk, with his own money and credibility, and with his investor's money. And he won, because he could see into the reality better than almost anyone else.
The only reasons he is not an icon of the right is that he happens to support liberal causes. Were he spending his money the same way as the Koch brothers, then he'd be a hero to you and your ilk. I assume, in saying that, that you, not being a racist, are not an anti-Semite either (unlike, it seems, much of the audience for the Trump campaign. Given that Trump has a Jewish son-in-law, I don't think Trump is anti-Semitic but it is pretty obvious that his campaign is pandering to those who are).
Kaitlyn, I don't think you are batshit crazy. I happen to think that you see yourself just as you describe yourself, but that you have been cloistered, intellectually, in a right-wing bublle chamber, and that you have lost the ability to think critically. Hence the professor story, and your friends' reaction to the Obama meme, and now your unthinking, and uninformed, view of Soros. And of course your belief that the first step to a socialist dictatorship is the implementation of nationalized health care (which is really funny, in a very sad way). It can be humbling and very difficult to admit that almost everything you believe, politically, is simply not real....just not true at all....and maybe you can't step back from your beleifs enough to even begin to admit it.
The person you described yourself as being should be able to do this. The person I think you are, based on what you have posted....I doubt that that person could do it at all. I guess we will see.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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