It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).
Interpretation
The importance of credit surpasses that of money itself, suggesting value is rooted in trust and borrowing power.
In this quote, George Soros emphasizes that credit is a more significant factor in economic systems than the actual currency in circulation. He argues that the ability to lend and borrow impacts economic activity and individual prosperity more profoundly than the mere presence of money, challenging the validity of monetarist theories that prioritize money supply over credit dynamics.
In practice
In a financial seminar discussing the role of credit in economic stability.
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.
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.
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.
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!
There is always some chance of recession in any year. But the evidence suggests that expansions don't die of old age.
There's a long list of investments that governments could and should be making. There is strengthening infrastructure, such as transport and communications; there is investment in education; there is investment in families, particularly putting measures in place that free women from having to make the choice between raising a family and work.
Our public credit is good, but the abundance of paper has produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships at the wharves as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation.
Most poor people live in the poorest countries.
Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.
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