The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a fear of a potential economic collapse while also feeling a greater concern for the existing economic system.
George Soros highlights a deep concern regarding the stability of the global marketplace, suggesting that while the thought of its collapse invokes fear and uncertainty due to the severe repercussions it could bring, he finds such an occurrence more palatable than the persistence of the current economic regime, which he perceives as flawed or damaging. This reflects a tension between the potential for disaster and the frustration with ongoing issues in the current system.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the implications of economic policy changes.
The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.
Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.
The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.
Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.
Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich.
Firms don't just try to pay as little as possible to get the needed bodies on board; when there is unemployment, they ask themselves how wage cuts would affect the behavior of the employees. Would they quit or feel dissatisfied and work less hard on the firm's behalf if they feel that wage policies are unfair?
A nation's economy is more than its markets, tastes, technologies and property rights.
Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college.
No bank should be too big or too complex to fail, but almost any bank is too big to liquidate quickly, particularly in the midst of a crisis.
Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge, posing an untapped opportunity to create markets, bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves.
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