Posted on 04/07/2012 11:42:25 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
George Soros, Chairman of Soros Fund Management (AFP Photo / Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
Billionaire investor George Soros has a new prediction for America. While it might be as dire as it gets for the financial wiz, this bet concerns more than just the value of the buck. According to Soros, there's about to be an all-out class war.
Soros, 81, previously bet against the British pound in the early 90s and made $1 billion off its collapse. In the years since, he’s remained active in investing, but also in advocacy. He’s helped keep Wikipedia afloat thanks to impressive contributions and through donations to the Tides Center, has indirectly funded Adbusters, the Canadian anti-capitalist magazine that put Occupy Wall Street on the map. Speaking to Newsweek recently, Soros neglected to acknowledge his past successes, but instead offered a word of warning: a period of “evil” is coming to the western world.
“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”
Soros goes on to compare the current state of the western world with what the Soviet Union was facing as communism crumbled. Although he would think that history would have taught the globe a thing or two about noticing trends, Soros says that, despite past events providing a perfect example of what is to come, the end of an empire seems imminent.
“The collapse of the Soviet system was a pretty extraordinary event, and we are currently experiencing something similar in the developed world, without fully realizing what’s happening,” adds Soros.
Soros goes on to say that as the crisis in the Eurozone only worsens, the American financial system will continue to be hit hard. On the way to a full-blown collapse, he cautions, Americans should expect society to alter accordingly. Riots will hit the streets, says Soros, and as a result, “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”
The recent adoption of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 and the proposed Enemy Expatriation Act, if approved, have already very well paved the way for such a society. Under the NDAA, the US government is allowed to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of terror crimes without ever bringing them to trial. Should lawmakers Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA) get their Enemy Expatriation Act through Congress, the US will also be able to simply revoke citizenship without trial, essentially removing constitutional rights from anyone deemed a threat.
Others have cautioned that, as inequality becomes more rampant in America, the country’s citizens are becoming increasingly agitated with those on the other side of the extreme. In a recent survey released by the Pew Research Center, 66 percent of the adults studied believe that either “very strong” or “strong” conflicts exist between America’s elite and the impoverished, a statistic that has skyrocketed in recent years. Between 2009 and 20011, the proportion of those that sense conflicts exist as such between the class groups grew by 19 percentage points. While less than half of Americans fearing a fight brewing at the dawn of the Obama administration, today two-out-of-three Americans feel that there is a strong conflict between both extremes of society.
Addressing the issue of inequality, Soros tells Newsweek that the main issue that will make or break a reelection for US President Barack Obama will be whether or not the rich end up being taxed more. Among the current frontrunners in the Republic Party’s race for the GOP nomination, wealth and taxes have been of the biggest concern of party rivals. The top candidates have made millions off of investments, and at a time of immense inequality, represent what 99 percent of Americans don’t. Taxing the rich to a bigger degree might finally bring a chance, and Soros says, “It shouldn’t be a difficult argument for Obama to make.”
Soros adds that if the US manages to make it through the troubled times to come, it come allow the nation to enter another golden era. “In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible. The European Union could regain its luster. I’m hopeful that the United States, as a political entity, will pass a very severe test and actually strengthen the institution,” he tells Newsweek.
With almost seven percent of Americans living below half of the poverty line, four unemployed Americans for each job, a shrinking middle class and an increasingly overzealous police state, it could very well be a tough road to get there, though.
Amazing.
Best part of the story “Soros, 81,”
I predict Soros will burn in Hell.
Indeed and those within his court, if you will.
No surprise he's stepping out of his cave...what an evil diabolical man he is. ...and he no longer hides behind the "curtain"....yet tolerated and encouraged by the left.
A better story would be a NY Times Obituary
Mister One Percent himself.
When that sonderkommando bastard dies, I hope it’s captured on video, because I want to watch it again and again.
Thanks E. Pluribus Unum.
All part of the plan....
I agree with his assessment. I would call it a “Social War” not a Class War. The preliminaries to the actual shooting has been going on since the 1960’s. We have been losing. Oswald Spengler has been more accurate in his predictions than any other thinker.
I certainly feel a sense of resentment towards America's "Leisure Class".
Folks who spend generations lying in the "safety net" that's become their hammock. Folks who feel entitled to things they haven't earned, don't pay taxes, yet feel compelled to have government take more for the producers to finance their unproductive lives.
Haha! My thoughts exactly. Last time I checked, you couldn’t take all those billions with you when you die. “To whom much is given, much is required”.
When George Soros makes a “prediction”, what he really means is “These are my plans”.
Soros is rooting for America’s demise and his agent, Barack Hussein Obama, is doing his masters bidding. Soros pretending that he gives a rap about a positive fate for America is disdainful arrogance masked, poorly, by a facade of concern. 81-year-old George Soros verifies the maxim that only the good die young.
“Best part of the story “Soros, 81,”
Hope the old bastard dies soon. Hell is waiting for him!
Soros admits his goal for the USA is nearing fruitation.
I guess this info won’t be on the network evening news....
None of those things have to happen, but some people are always stirring it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse
Patrick Colquhoun
Poverty ... is a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society, without which nations and communities could not exist in a state of civilisation. It is the lot of man – it is the source of wealth, since without poverty there would be no labour, and without labour there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth
it should start with anything he owns in the USA...
“Hell is waiting for him!”
They don’t want him yet! n/s
Back in the 1930’s, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, and others had more honor than this bastard and his ilk. At least the 1930 era gangsters were up front and honest about who and what they were.
http://civic.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?action_id=268&rc=99RTD
99% Spring Action Training
http://the99spring.com/who-we-are/
Letter Signers
Sarita Gupta
Jobs With Justice
Bob King
United Auto Workers
George Goehl
National Peoples Action
Ai-jen Poo
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Justin Ruben
MoveOn.org
Joy Cushman & Judith Freeman
New Organizing Institute
Liz Butler
Movement Strategy Center
John Sellers & Andrew Boyd
The Other 98%
Mary Kay Henry
Service Employees International Union
Richard Trumka
AFL-CIO
Van Jones & Natalie Foster
Rebuild the Dream
Rashad Robinson
Color of Change
John Wilhelm
UNITE-HERE
Phil Radford
Greenpeace
John Cavanagh
Institute for Policy Studies
Scott Reed
PICO National Network
Tracy Van Slyke & Ilana Berger
New Bottom Line
Lawrence Guyot
Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
Julian Bond
SNCC Legacy Project
Leo Gerard
United Steel Workers
John Stocks
National Education Association
Daniel Cantor
Working Families Party
Larry Cohen
Communications Workers of America
Victor Sanchez, Jr.
United States Student Association
Becky Tarbotton
Rainforest Action Network
Randi Weingarten
American Federation of Teachers
Brian Kettenring
Leadership Center for the Common Good
Randy Jackson
UNITY
Saket Soni
National Guestworker Alliance
Bill McKibben & May Boeve
350.org
Sharon Lungo & Megan Swoboda
The Ruckus Society
Ian Inaba
Citizen Engagement Lab
Patrick Reinsborough & Doyle Canning
smartMeme Strategy & Training Project
Rachel LaForest
Right to the City Alliance
Brigid Flaherty
Pushback Network
Richard Hopson
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
Tim Carpenter
Progressive Democrats of America
Bob Callahan
Change to Win
Michael Leon Guerrero
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Roger Hickey
Campaign for America’s Future
David Donnelly & Nicholas Nyhart
Public Campaign Action Fund
Aaron Ostrom
Fuse Washington
Jeff Ordower
Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment
Karen Scharff
Citizen Action of New York
Marianne Manilov
Engage
Bruce Klipple
United Electrical Workers Union
Pablo Alvarado
National Day Laborers Organizing Network
LeeAnn Hall
Alliance for a Just Society
Leslie Moody
The Partnership for Working Families
Teresa Cheng
United Students Against Sweatshops
Arturo Carmona
Presente.org
Robin McGehee & Heather Cronk
Get Equal
Gerald McEntee
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
Hugh Espey
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Patti Lynn
Corporate Accountability International
Bob Nicklas
American Federation of Government Employees
Aparna Shah
Mobilize the Immigrant Vote
Celia Kutz
Training for Change
Chris Gabriele
People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER)
Chris Hicks
Student Labor Action Project
Corrine Fowler
Colorado Progressive Coalition
Phaedra Ellis Lamkins
Green for All
Lillian Walker Shelton
DC Jobs with Justice
Tom Swan
Connecticut Citizen Action Group
Sarah Weintraub
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Judy Hertz
Midwest Academy
Sondra Youdelman
Community Voices Heard
Eric Byler
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Victor Menotti
International Forum on Globalization
Joe Hansen
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Don Carlson
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Kirsten Moller
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Bob Fulkerson
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Rev. Bruce Wright
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James P. Hoffa
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Pamela J. McMichael
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Pamela Twiss
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Maura Cowley
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Steve Kretzmann
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Will Tanzman
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Jodie Evans
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Steve Schnapp
United for a Fair Economy
Ethan Rome
Health Care for America Now
Arlene Englehardt
Pacifica Radio
Civil war will invite invasion from China, Russia, and their satellites.
Forgive, and love the communists, muslims, even Soros.
The self-fulfilling false prophet speaks...
This isn't a prediction; this is exactly what he's counting on.
He would know; he's been setting it up for a long time now.
The United States pays its poor to stay on the sidelines. -tom
Could one of you clever FReepers please put a Hitler moustache on Soros...or maybe do a Soros morphing into Hitler? I think that would be very appropriate.
This is nothing new for the left. The more desperate they get, the more problems they create. The propaganda machines are already running full tilt, and all the radical groups that make up the Democratic Party are frothing from rage. They threw all their hope and change faith into an incompetent pile of crap, and now there is nothing left for them to do other than destroy everything for the rest of us.
“I love it when a plan comes together” - Hannibal Smith of the “A” Team.
Seems to work pretty well for George Soros too.
Excellent response.
Soros 81 - also nice.
Burn in Hell -— definitely.
Not really. In fact the two mobsters you named taught Alinsky the principles he would later employ in his "community organizing" model.
Presuming it's multi-level, he'll be going to a much lower floor. Paper immediately turns to ash, coins quickly melt, boil and vaporize.
That’s why the well paid parasites refuse to stop illegal immigration.
Nice list of the “usual suspects”.
(post #25)
Our dear friends the Russian KGB (RT) hoping for revenge via their anti-west agent, Mr. Soros. As Obama says, the Russians and Soros will have to wait until after the election.
81, maybe he’ll kick the bucket sooner than later.
Just Waiting for the Worms! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDY0DfEjmo&feature=fvwrel
That’s a darned good target list you published there!
“In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible. The European Union could regain its luster. I’m hopeful that the United States, as a political entity, will pass a very severe test and actually strengthen the institution,” he tells Newsweek.
On this, as it is written, I agree with Soros.
The question is whether or not we learn more from pain or from pleasure. I tend to believe that pain is the better, more effective teacher.
We want to believe we can have it all and socialism promises we can and that someone else will pay for it.
If we aren't careful, we are going to test that theory and then we will experience real pain, the kind Soros is talking about, the kind of pain we've fought wars to avoid and/or to overcome.
If we learn from that pain and/or from the fear of it and manage to reboot the Constitutional Republic we began with, Soros will be right about that golden era that will certainly follow.
But first, the evil progressive/socialist/communist/marxist beast that has infected us for generations must die!
We're out of balance with the real laws that govern this place. Either we fix this or it will be fixed for us.
I threw up a little in my mouth..
Well, it looks like my retirement plans are becoming more and more salient to my survival.
A good 40-50’ sailboat and a savings account denominated in Australian dollars ought to let me pick up and leave if things get too bad.
Plus, I can make a bit of money ferrying out refugees as well as doing a little gun-running to any conservatives if there is fighting
Not only did he bet on it, his market manipulations likely hastened the collapse. He has caused more pain and deprivation than even his nazi brothers could have imagined.
Like Hitler in 1938 predicting millions of Jews will perish in camps.
Sorry George. didnt mean to strike close to home.
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