5 ms·

Since I don't agree with your premise that successful speculations are morally equivalent to robbery, your entire analogy seems ridiculous to me.

efuquen 13y ago
He was attacking your statement: "Someone was going to a lot of make money when the British government's scheme unraveled." I think the point is clear, morality has nothing to do with whether something is definitely going to happen or not. If you're taking advantage of a situation and you deem it immoral, whether the end result would have been the same even if you hadn't participated is irrelevant, it's still an immoral action. Whether robbery and speculation are equivalent is a different point from the one being made. Obviously analogies aren't perfect, I think most people here realize that from the very definition that analogous situations aren't the same. But it's still a useful tool to make an argument with.
- fleitz 13y ago
  If trading currency is immoral then the british government is no more moral than Soros, like tango trading takes two.
  - M2Ys4U 13y ago
    To introduce another bad analogy in to the conversation, eating cheese is not immoral but forcing a 10kg block of cheddar into somebody's mouth is. Black Wednesday still has political and economic consequences more than 20 years later - the UK is not a member of the Euro and the Right may potentially pull us out of the EU altogether. The (de)merits of both positions notwithstanding, Black Wednesday certainly still has a huge psychological effect on our relationship with the rest of Europe.
    - SixSigma 13y ago
      Just a FYI, some of us feel that eating cheese is immoral.
      - M2Ys4U 13y ago
        Hmm, true. I had forgotten about veganism, sorry.
    - rjknight 13y ago
      Another way of looking at it is this: had the pound remained on the ERM, Britain would have remained on-track to join the Euro. Assuming no devaluation of the pound (the incident that caused Britain to leave the ERM), the pound would have become part of the Euro at a ruinously high exchange rate relative to the Deutschmark. In the financial collapse of 2008, Britain would not have been able to lower interest rates or run quantitative easing. This is basically the predicament that Spain, Italy and Greece are in (though Greece has other problems). They have been forced to carry out "internal devaluation" by cutting spending and wages, and due to the sticky prices effect this basically means making very large numbers of people unemployed. Of course, you could argue another counter-factual, that Britain within the Euro would have tipped the balance of power in the ECB in favour of a much more doveish monetary policy from 2008, and thus saved Europe from calamity. It's really hard to speculate about these kinds of reflexive dynamics.
    - _3u10 13y ago
      Except Great Britain is the sole maker of cheese, and forces under threat of violence the citizens of the UK to pay their taxes and other debts in cheese, and it costs Britain nothing to make cheese. They didn't force a 10 kg block down any ones throat, they choose of their own volition to buy 10 kg of cheese at price they knew to be outrageous, to maintain their manipulated price of cheese because they are the sole maker of cheese. So as the sole supplier of cheese they fucked up the market by flooding it with cheese, then realizing what they had done bought fuck loads of cheese that costs nothing to produce to maintain their inflated price of cheese. Fuck them.
westiseast 13y ago
His premise is something similar to what I was going to write and then didn't for brevity - the general justification touted for Soros doing what he did is that the British government were incompetent and deserved what they got - it's equivalent to saying the drunk deserves everything he gets because he should have known better. A third party's incompetence isn't a moral justification for your proactive exploration of their incompetence.
- CocaKoala 13y ago
  So in your mind, there's no difference between engaging in a transaction that both parties enter into willingly, fully in control of their faculties, and robbing a drunken, passed out individual? Because that analogy holds those two things to be equal.
  - fabulist 13y ago
    If a car dealer knowingly sells you a lemon, is it a consensual exchange? I don't think was Soros did was absolutely unethical, but its ridiculous to pretend that it was squeaky clean. One party thought this to be an ordinary transaction; the other party knew it would debase the currency.
    - edanm 13y ago
      I think the poker analogy is a better one. Two parties took a bet, as in a poker game. They each though they were doing the right thing. Turns out, one of them had a winning hand and one of them didn't. But since everyone knew the nature of the game, and everyone knew they were making bets, why is it unethical? Really, I would think more anger should be placed on the politicians who got monetary policy so drastically wrong. Or maybe anger is wrong - maybe I should say "learn from this". Because heaping anger on someone who outplayed you is a great way to mask the fact that you need to learn.
      - fabulist 13y ago
        Its not that I think Soros should be "blamed" per say, it just doesn't speak highly of his character. He put profits before the wellbeing of the British people. Clearly he doesn't feel an ethical obligation to them. I would have. But you're right. Judging Soros gets us nowhere, drawing lessons from this does.
ScottBurson 13y ago
Indeed. A much better analogy is that a rich sucker sits down to play poker in a casino and gets fleeced by the pros.

efuquen 13y ago

He was attacking your statement: "Someone was going to a lot of make money when the British government's scheme unraveled." I think the point is clear, morality has nothing to do with whether something is definitely going to happen or not. If you're taking advantage of a situation and you deem it immoral, whether the end result would have been the same even if you hadn't participated is irrelevant, it's still an immoral action. Whether robbery and speculation are equivalent is a different point from the one being made. Obviously analogies aren't perfect, I think most people here realize that from the very definition that analogous situations aren't the same. But it's still a useful tool to make an argument with.

fleitz 13y ago
If trading currency is immoral then the british government is no more moral than Soros, like tango trading takes two.
- M2Ys4U 13y ago
  To introduce another bad analogy in to the conversation, eating cheese is not immoral but forcing a 10kg block of cheddar into somebody's mouth is. Black Wednesday still has political and economic consequences more than 20 years later - the UK is not a member of the Euro and the Right may potentially pull us out of the EU altogether. The (de)merits of both positions notwithstanding, Black Wednesday certainly still has a huge psychological effect on our relationship with the rest of Europe.
  - SixSigma 13y ago
    Just a FYI, some of us feel that eating cheese is immoral.
    - M2Ys4U 13y ago
      Hmm, true. I had forgotten about veganism, sorry.
  - rjknight 13y ago
    Another way of looking at it is this: had the pound remained on the ERM, Britain would have remained on-track to join the Euro. Assuming no devaluation of the pound (the incident that caused Britain to leave the ERM), the pound would have become part of the Euro at a ruinously high exchange rate relative to the Deutschmark. In the financial collapse of 2008, Britain would not have been able to lower interest rates or run quantitative easing. This is basically the predicament that Spain, Italy and Greece are in (though Greece has other problems). They have been forced to carry out "internal devaluation" by cutting spending and wages, and due to the sticky prices effect this basically means making very large numbers of people unemployed. Of course, you could argue another counter-factual, that Britain within the Euro would have tipped the balance of power in the ECB in favour of a much more doveish monetary policy from 2008, and thus saved Europe from calamity. It's really hard to speculate about these kinds of reflexive dynamics.
  - _3u10 13y ago
    Except Great Britain is the sole maker of cheese, and forces under threat of violence the citizens of the UK to pay their taxes and other debts in cheese, and it costs Britain nothing to make cheese. They didn't force a 10 kg block down any ones throat, they choose of their own volition to buy 10 kg of cheese at price they knew to be outrageous, to maintain their manipulated price of cheese because they are the sole maker of cheese. So as the sole supplier of cheese they fucked up the market by flooding it with cheese, then realizing what they had done bought fuck loads of cheese that costs nothing to produce to maintain their inflated price of cheese. Fuck them.

westiseast 13y ago

His premise is something similar to what I was going to write and then didn't for brevity - the general justification touted for Soros doing what he did is that the British government were incompetent and deserved what they got - it's equivalent to saying the drunk deserves everything he gets because he should have known better. A third party's incompetence isn't a moral justification for your proactive exploration of their incompetence.

CocaKoala 13y ago
So in your mind, there's no difference between engaging in a transaction that both parties enter into willingly, fully in control of their faculties, and robbing a drunken, passed out individual? Because that analogy holds those two things to be equal.
- fabulist 13y ago
  If a car dealer knowingly sells you a lemon, is it a consensual exchange? I don't think was Soros did was absolutely unethical, but its ridiculous to pretend that it was squeaky clean. One party thought this to be an ordinary transaction; the other party knew it would debase the currency.
  - edanm 13y ago
    I think the poker analogy is a better one. Two parties took a bet, as in a poker game. They each though they were doing the right thing. Turns out, one of them had a winning hand and one of them didn't. But since everyone knew the nature of the game, and everyone knew they were making bets, why is it unethical? Really, I would think more anger should be placed on the politicians who got monetary policy so drastically wrong. Or maybe anger is wrong - maybe I should say "learn from this". Because heaping anger on someone who outplayed you is a great way to mask the fact that you need to learn.
    - fabulist 13y ago
      Its not that I think Soros should be "blamed" per say, it just doesn't speak highly of his character. He put profits before the wellbeing of the British people. Clearly he doesn't feel an ethical obligation to them. I would have. But you're right. Judging Soros gets us nowhere, drawing lessons from this does.

ScottBurson 13y ago

Indeed. A much better analogy is that a rich sucker sits down to play poker in a casino and gets fleeced by the pros.