关于索罗斯的对话

以下几段是我和一个朋友关于Soros的对话，起因是Soros在一次演讲中说了这样的话“I am not responsible for financial crisis”。我看了不爽，就做了些评论。摘抄如下。


我：
"I am not responsible for financial crisis" is only true in his own philosophy...

The fact that a knife is fatal to human being does not justify the crime of killing a human being with a knife. The fact that Thai baht is overvalued does not justify his action to short Thai baht and consequently causing financial crisis; given time and correct measure, such deviation could be corrected and millions of peoples' life could be better than today.


友：
so we blame hitler for WWII, and only two other categories left -- "victims and heros."


我：
we don't blame historical issues on one single personal, WWII was caused by various complicated reasons and so was Asia Financial Crisis.

But to me, it doesn't make sense if Hitler claimed "I am not responsible for WWII, go to blame the constitution of Weimarer Republic and President Hindenburg who made me the Premier; go to blame the terrible German econmoy during 1930s when I could sell my theory easily; go to blame Rommel, Guderian or Manstein who trashed French, Russian and British army; go to blame Vichy who surrendered so easily....."

To many people, it will be funny if Hitler himself made all those claims... To me, it is equally funny that Soros made such a claim that "I am not responsible for asian financial crisis"


友：
I always believe the existence justifies.

If it wasn't the collapse of German economy, driving people to seek for a "hero" to raise up the once glorious Germanic peoples, there wouldn't be a Hitler.

If it wasn't the over-reliance on banking system for corporate funding, the Thai Bhat wouldn't be so vulnerable.

The world needs balance, but cannot always own it. Smooth transaction from one stage to another only happens when condition permits. Else, a sharp jump or fall would happen, even spikes.

I wouldn't say Asian Crisis was good for Asia, only because it's too cruel to say so. But I think the Crisis shook down the old financial systems for a lot of countries, and rang the alarm for the rest. Central banks and ministries of Finance then learnt their lesson, to build up their capital markets, providing alternative funding sources for corporates and governments. So that we can see a light that one day, Asia becomes the next America.

As for investment bankers, let's group them into corporate financers and global marketers. Soros is a hedge fund manager, and I don't call him investment banker. But some global marketers do make money in the same way as he does. I should say they are greedy people, driven by profits. But as what I have just said, existence justifies. They spot arbitrage opportunities, gamble on speculations but hedge risk at the same time. Their existence helped to prevent market from overvaluing. But of 'cos there are blacksheeps as long as there's people. Speculation caused a lot of tragedies, I agree. But most of the time, it was underpinned by the dangers in incubation.

The most exciting and interesting thing about the world is we have so many people doing different things, and think differently. One man can never rule the world. So I would not blame a single person for his wrongdoings. And I will also not destroy the forest because of a few sick trees. But I wouldn't be happy to see the healthy ones get contaminated.


我：
I agree with you in many aspects, but we approach the problem quite differently.

The world needs balance, and any deviation or distortion will ultimately be restored to its balanced point. However, should the financial crisis be such a painful path to it? Should Hitler be the necessary solution to German nationalism? Maybe we have to, But being an individual, if you encounter such an opportunity like Soros or Hitler, do you take the profit (and through a legal way!) or you try not to if you are aware of the consequence. The market may crash one day, the war may break out one day, but do you want to be that single straw that broke the camel's back.

I am not against of IB at all, in fact, I think a well functioned IB industry is very important, corporate finance people optimizes the capital allocation, traders eliminates arbitrage opportunties and drive the market towards a perfect market. Everything exists for a reason, I agree, but an individual should have his own principle as well, for example, hedge funds suppose to hedge risks, but what are most of them doing right now?

Again, I agree with most of what you said and I think you will agree with what I said as well but we approach the problem quite differently, or rather, with different value systems. You see it from a macro-level, the market will correct itself and any movement (being sharp or gradual) is just a reasonable reflection of the current distorted market, so you don't blame that single person because tragedy seems to be inevitable. I understand that. But for me, I look from the individual level, when such circumstances come to an individual, what is your decision and what is your individual choice?

From this perspective, I feel sad that Soros never regret for what he has ever done.