Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States

Essays

By George Soros
(PublicAffairs, Hardcover, 9781610391528, 208pp.)

Publication Date: February 2012

Categories: Foreign Exchange, Economic Conditions, International Relations - General

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George Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and is the founder of a global network of foundations dedicated to supporting open societies. He is the author of several best-selling books including The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Crash of 2008; The Crisis of Global Capitalism; The Bubble of American Supremacy; Underwriting Democracy; and The Age of Fallibility. He was born in Budapest and lives in New York City.

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Kirkus Reviews
“Soros is someone who has made his billions… anticipating the reaction of markets to ordinary realities, pleasant and otherwise—so it’s well worth paying attention to his views on the world’s financial systems.  Not for the faint of heart or the innumerate. For policy and financial wonks, a bracing read.”

Bloomberg“Soros has called himself ‘a failed philosopher.’ He’s actually a rarer species: A pathologist of market linkages and psychology -- a man who quickly grasps how an unhealthy growth of credit here will morph into a morbid bubble there. His diagnoses are clear, whether he’s describing commodity index investing or former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s flawed plan to purchase distressed mortgage-backed securities.” New York Journal of Books
“The current financial crisis is explained concisely with eloquence. Understanding what is happening and what is to be done is reason enough to read Financial Turmoil. . . . Dr. Soros shows us once again in these essays that he is not only a competent trader. He is an admirable thinker, and an adept policy analyst. If we were all as good at political economy as he is there would be no financial bubbles—and there would probably be less financial turmoil.” Bloomberg“This is a compilation of op-ed articles that the billionaire investor wrote as the euro crisis boiled up. As a retread, it displays Soros’s knack for assessing market linkages and psychology on the fly.” Malaysia Star“Every essay is excellent in brevity and content, attesting to Soros' consummate skill as a writer and his level of expertise as an investor. The introduction being the lead-in to a more serious matter is the best. In an astounding clear prose Soros explains the root of the crisis, calling it the culmination of a super bubble built since the 1980s under the reign of Reaganomics and Thatcherism that advocated for minimal government interference. Soro's recount of the aftermath of the crisis is by far the clearest. Not only is the sequence of events covered relevant, the principles and beliefs shaping minds of policy makers assigned to carry out rescue efforts are bluntly refuted.” LSE Review of Books“A curious combination of philosophy, finance and policy advice… His analysis is extremely authoritative and by pursuing his theory of ‘reflexivity’, his account has a certain uniqueness. It is also re-assuring to find that his argument is sufficiently complex as to be almost contradictory at times. Many accounts of the crisis seem to work the facts around a pre-determined narrative; Soros works his narrative around the facts… The book is a brisk and easy read, which contains such diversity of opinion as to interest anyone with an eye on recent events.”