Tag Archive: ee-imported-books

  1. The Tragedy of the European Union

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    The European Union could soon be a thing of the past. Xenophobia is rampant and commonly reflected in elections across the continent. Great Britain may hold a referendum on whether to abandon the union altogether. Spurred by anti-EU sentiments due to the euro crisis, national interests conflict with a shared vision for the future of Europe. Is it too late to preserve the union that generated unprecedented peace for more than half a century?

    This is no mere academic question with limited importance for America and the rest of the world. In the past decade, the EU has declined from a unified global power to a fractious confederation of states with staggering unemployment resentfully seeking relief from a reluctant Germany. If the EU collapses and the former member states are transformed again from partners into rivals, the US and the world will confront the serious economic and political consequences that follow.

    In a series of revealing interviews conducted by Dr. Gregor Peter Schmitz, George Soros—a man of vast European experience whose personal past informs his present concerns—offers trenchant commentary and concise, prescriptive advice: The euro crisis was not an inevitable consequence of integration, but a result of avoidable mistakes in politics, economics, and finance; and excessive faith in the self-regulating financial markets that Soros calls market fundamentalism inspired flawed institutional structures that call out for reform. Despite the considerable perils of this period, George Soros maintains his faith in the European Union as a model of open society. This book is a testament to his vision for a peaceful and productive Europe.

  2. Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States: Essays

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    Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States shows George Soros responding in real time to a rippling earthquake of financial instability. In this collection of essays written since the aftermath of the Crash of 2008, he addresses the urgent need for the U.S. to restructure its banking and financial system. He anticipates the globalization of the crisis and, in particular, its perilous second phase in Europe; and finally he calls for concerted international action.

    While charting the journey from the American mortgage crisis to riots in Athens, Soros often reveals an alternate course to that chosen by the U.S. and European governments. Soros was among the first to appreciate the scale of the disruption, and that “these are not normal times.” His analysis is cogent, informed by years as a fund manager and supporter of European integration. His concern for the eurozone’s future is palpable, as the markets test Europe’s banks and political processes to the brink of destruction, to a degree never before seen—or foreseen—since the creation of the European Community.

  3. The Soros Lectures at the Central European University

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    Five lectures George Soros delivered at the Central European University in Budapest – which he founded in 1991 – distill a lifetime of thinking on finance, capitalism and open society. In a series of lectures delivered at the Central European University in October 2009, George Soros provided a broad overview of his thoughts on economics and politics. The lectures are the culmination of a lifetime of practical and philosophical reflection. In the first and second lecture, Soros discusses his general theory of reflexivity and its application to financial markets, providing insight into the recent financial crisis. The third and fourth lectures examine the concept of open society, which has guided Soros’s global philanthropy, as well as the potential for conflict between capitalism and open society. The closing lecture focuses on the way ahead, closely examining the increasingly important economic and political role that China will play in the future. “The Budapest Lectures” presents these five seminal talks into one volume, which offers a condensed and highly readable summary of Soros’s world view.

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    pdf Lecture 1: The Human Uncertainty Principle
    pdf Lecture 3: Open Society

  4. The Crash of 2008 and What it Means

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    The London Times writes:  “They’re wrong about oil, by George: In short, the standard economic assumption that supply and demand drive prices is only a starting point for understanding financial markets. In boom-bust cycles, the textbook theory is not just slightly inaccurate but totally wrong. This is the main argument made by George Soros in his fascinating book on the credit crunch, “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets,” launched at an LSE lecture last night.”

    An updated edition of the New York Times bestseller The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, now with four new chapters.

  5. The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means

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    In the midst of the most serious financial upheaval since the Great Depression, legendary financier George Soros explores the origins of the crisis and its implications for the future. Soros, whose breadth of experience in financial markets is unrivaled, places the current crisis in the context of decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom and bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity. “This is the worst financial crisis since the 1930s,” writes Soros in characterizing the scale of financial distress spreading across Wall Street and other financial centers around the world. In a concise essay that combines practical insight with philosophical depth, Soros makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great credit crisis and its implications for our nation and the world.

  6. The Age of Fallibility

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    Tyranny, violence, ignorance, and arrogance: The celebrated financier and bestselling author takes on the policies of post-9/11 America with impassioned eloquence.

    George Soros made billions anticipating seismic changes in the financial markets and has used that money to try and change the world. In The Age of Fallibility he brings that commitment to the subject that has preoccupied him since 2001: the degenerate state of America. He delivers his most forceful and penetrating description of the fatal flaws not merely of the Bush administration, but of the wider American view of the world. With impassioned eloquence, Soros identifies the major themes of our time–tyranny, violence, ignorance, and arrogance.

  7. George Soros on Globalization

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    Never before have we stood to gain or lose as much from understanding the international economy. Scandals plague the world’s largest corporations, the American trade deficit has soared to historic heights, and international organizations from the World Bank to the WTO are accused of being inefficient and corrupt. Is our global economy as unhealthy, and as unjust, as we think? And what can be done about it?

    At this critical juncture, George Soros, a major proponent of globalization, takes to task the many institutions that have failed to keep pace with our global economy. At the same time, he offers a compelling new paradigm to bring the institutions and the economy back into necessary alignment. Economics are amoral, he argues – but neither our society nor our economy can afford to function without a distinct system of right and wrong. As we look toward the future and wonder what’s ailing our economy, where our jobs are going, and whether the power of economics can be harnessed for positive changes, this thoroughly updated edition of George Soros on Globalization is a report no citizen of the world can do without.

  8. The Bubble of American Supremacy

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    Long known as “the world’s only private citizen with a foreign policy,” George Soros combines his razor-sharp sense of economic trends with his passionate advocacy for open societies and decency in world politics to come up with a workable, and severely critical, analysis of the Bush administration’s overreaching, militaristic foreign policy.

    Soros believes that this administration’s plans abroad come from the same sort of “bubble” psychology that afflicted our markets in the late 1990s. They have used a real fact, our overwhelming military supremacy, to create a deluded worldview, that might makes right and that “you’re either with us or against us,” in the same way that the recent boom used a real fact, the growth in technology, to lead to a delusion, the “new economy.”

    Like the best of the books that have responded quickly to world events, The Bubble of American Supremacy has a clear, intriguing, comprehensive thesis that makes necessary, and compelling, order of our seemingly disordered world.

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    pdf Chapter 2: The War on Terror

  9. Open Society

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    George Soros’s The Crisis of Global Capitalism became an international bestseller and an instant classic; a must read for anyone concerned with the complex market forces that rule our global economy and create both prosperity and instability. Now, in Open Society, Soros takes a new and provocative look at the arguments he made in that book, incorporating the latest global economic and political developments into his analysis. He shows how our economic and political arrangements are out of sync. Recognizing that our existing institutions are under the sway of sovereign states, he proposes an “open society alliance” with the dual purpose of fostering open societies in individual countries and laying the groundwork for a global open society. In leading up to his inspiring vision, Soros presents an iconoclastic view of the world that has guided him both in making money and spending it on his network of Open Society Foundations. This book sums up the life’s work of an exceptional individual. George Soros is the best fund manager in history, a stateless statesman, and an original thinker.

  10. The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered

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    The global economy, on which the world now depends more than ever, is in crisis. The Russian economy has collapsed, leading to punishing inflation and economic hardship. Scores of Japanese banks are in ruin while the Japanese government muddles along, the nation falling deeper and deeper into recession. The once-booming economies of Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia have imploded. Brazil and the rest of Latin America has begun to edge toward the precipice, and even in Europe and America the markets lurch violently, wiping out gains with each passing week.

    No one is better positioned to explain the current global financial crisis than George Soros, the man Morgan Stanley head Barton Biggs calls “the finest analyst of the world in our time.” In The Crisis of Global Capitalism, Soros, chair of Soros Fund Management (whose Quantum Fund is considered to have been the best performing investment fund in the world over the past thirty years), dissects the current crisis and economic theory in general, revealing how theoretical assumptions have combined with human behavior to lead to today’s mess. He shows how unquestioning faith in market forces blinds us to crucial instabilities, and how those instabilities have chain-reacted to cause the current crisis—a crisis that has the potential to get much, much worse. Offering brilliant solutions to the global meltdown, based on years of Soros’s own experience as a financier and philanthropist, this is essential reading for anyone involved with the new economy—that is, all of us.

    Download Excerpts

    pdf Chapter 1: Fallibility and Reflexivity
    pdf Chapter 5: Open Society