George Soros withers in the face of an Austrian critique

by Dixie Flatline | No Treason | July 4th, 2009
Jun. 20, 2010

The first Chinese participant does a fantastic job of challenging George Soros, with what sounds to me, like an argument directly out of Tom Woods NYT bestseller, Meltdown. Now I haven’t read Meltdown, but I have caught all of Woods’ articles and speeches available online, and feel I can confidently make that assessment.

At 2:30, the Chinese participant mentions that markets can correct themselves, and Soros argues they cannot.

Notice how Soros stumbles when he talks about how markets are smarter than regulators, then claims that only regulators can stop perpetual market failure. And the questioner does a wonderful job of pointing out, that only expansion of the monetary base can provide the necessary environment for these large booms, and Soros starts blinking, which sometimes is a sign of discomfort (approx. 4:30)

Great video, and wonderful to see the oligarchs challenged, particularly in Asia, which is where the hope for rational, free market economics, specifically Austrian Economics, has enormous potential to take hold. As the flows of capital shift from the West to the East, its my feeling that change in economic attitudes will come where people have a healthy disrespect for the state, for propaganda, and the population generally values intellectualism, and savings.

Choice Soros quotes;

“Regulators can’t predict any better than the markets, in fact they are going to be less good at it than the markets. ”

“Regulator creates moral hazard. But if they didn’t intervene, markets would actually collapse, therefore they must intervene.”

“The evidence shows that they can’t”

in response to the claim that markets can correct themselves

“Without the regulators interfering, the financial system would collapse, would have collapsed a long, long time ago, and would continue to keep on collapsing. And that is why regulation has come into play.”

The quality of Soros’ doublespeak is unconvincing, and I think that the audience recognized it.