Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Genius of Soros

After reading Louis’s post (I will give the link later on) I searched the Internet to find out what the heck Soros means by “reflexivity”. Then I found the text of speech that elucidates his notion of “reflexivity”:

http://www.geocities.com/ecocorner/intelarea/gs1.html

As I understand, he indicates that “the participants’ bias” in market transactions triggers the disequilibrium of markets and consequently changes the reality of economy. He ridiculously assumes that he has discovered an innovative theory about the connection between the reality and thinking. He is way too materialist in the matter of understanding that the reality is constituted by human activity but a total idiot in the sense of regarding this activity as the product of individual bias, the unreasoned judgment about the existing reality.

I know I have already overstepped the mark today by relating the concept of price by psychoanalytic definition of the symptom but I feel obliged to apply another extraneous metaphor, since George Soros’s filthy speculations in financial markets is commonly designated as “BETS”. I am not familiar with financial markets, but I have considerable amount of experience about the theory and practice of betting. Therefore, this time I will give an example in connection with the game of poker:

Let us consider that in the very beginning of a tournament; I was dealt a pair of jacks, a premium hand, but just to run against an imbecile sitting on the button who raises all-in with Ace-King suited. Suppose that I can see his or her hand. The reality of mathematics and the theory of poker advise me that I must call his bet immediately since I am nearly 54% favorite to win the hand and I have to prefer the actions that are profitable in the long run. But there is no such a thing as long run in a poker tournament. Therefore, the reasonable action here is to fold my beautiful jacks. At the moment I don’t have enough chips to prove the rightfulness of probability.

For that reason, what Soros regards as a bias against the existing reality does not imply an unreasonable preference disregarding the elementary science of probability and the art of evaluating the worth of correct information in the financial markets. But unlike Soros most of the gamblers in the grand financial casino haven’t got enough chips to consistently warrant the science of probability by making mathematically and informatively the correct decisions. His genius in financial markets sarcastically originates from the merciless reality that he has a lot of chips that provides resilience against the distasteful variance and teasing jokes of probability.

Once Marx said:

“In reality and for the practical materialist, i.e. the communist, it is a question of revolutionising the existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things.”

1 comment:

Frank Partisan said...

Soros is trying to have it both ways, being both materialist and idealist.

The poker analogy was good. Soros has the resources to play all he wants. He is the $$ behind liberal Democratic Party movements. He gave $$ to John Kerry when he ran against Bush.