Originally Posted by
Kurt Gabin
Alright, let's take his quotes and see what can be pulled out of them.
“I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong.”
Farsighted
“It's not whether you're right or wrong, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.”
Non-valued NI, valued Ne
“It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.”
Weak valued Te, he relies on Ne
“Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.”
Valued Ne, perhaps in Ego
“How good are markets in predicting real-world developments? Reading the record, it is striking how many calamities that I anticipated did not in fact materialise. Financial markets constantly anticipate events, both on the positive and on the negative side, which fail to materialise exactly because they have been anticipated. It is an old joke that the stock market has predicted seven of the last two recessions. Markets are often wrong.”
Background Ni (or how is it called here, demonstrative, right?)
“The fact that a thesis is flawed does not mean that we should not invest in it as long as other people believe in it and there is a large group of people left to be convinced. The point was made by John Maynard Keynes when he compared the stock market to a beauty contest where the winner is not the most beautiful contestant but the one whom the greatest number of people consider beautiful. Where I have something significant to add is in pointing out that it pays to look for the flaws; if we find them, we are ahead of the game because we can limit our losses when the market also discovers what we already know. It is when we are unaware of what could go wrong that we have to worry.”
Again, demonstrative Ni, negative Ne
“Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, - that of alchemy, operational success.”
Non-valued Ti, valued Te
“I start from the position that every human endeavor is flawed: if we were to discard everything that is flawed there would be nothing left. We must therefore make the most of what we have; the alternative is to embrace death. The choice is a real one, because death can be embraced in a number of ways; the pursuit of perfection and eternity in all its manifestations is equivalent to choosing the idea of death over the idea of life. If we carry this line of argument to its logical conclusion, the meaning of life consists of the flaws in one's conceptions and what one does about them. Life can be seen as a fertile fallacy.”
Here he fell into philosophical reflections and they coincided with the philosophy of the existentialism of Sartre, who was EII.
“I developed a theory of salesmanship based on the principle that one must not on any account identify oneself with the merchandise one is selling. Selling is a game where you score when you make a sale. If you allow your ego to be involved, the customer can brush you off and you lose; but if you do not identify yourself with your work you will be able to redouble your efforts when you are rejected, and if you make a sale you come out the winner.”
Se PoLR, or at least weak non-valued Se. He does not see or focus on the "next frame" where the item is already sold and he has received the money.
“I commissioned two political experts to advise me about what I could do to oppose the re-election of President Bush.”
Well, he does not like Beta and does trust experts. Which quadra could it be?
“Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.”
More Ne
“My peculiarity is that I don't have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions.”
Yielding (Resource-protecting), but could be also irrationality.
“My main concern is with the world order”
Strong or valued Ni
“The world order needs a major overhaul.”
Same
“At present, the developed countries condescend to the developing ones.”
Static kind of ethics, that is, Fi
“The main difference between me and other people who have amassed this kind of money is that I am primarily interested in ideas, and I don't have much personal use for money. But I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't made money: My ideas would not have gotten much play.”
Ne, Ne, more Ne
“The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis. ... I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.”
Again, Ne over Ni
“Perhaps you were too idealistic.
I admit it. But I don't believe I overestimate the importance of ideals. Only when people believe in something can they move the world. The trouble is that people simply don't believe in open society as a goal worth fighting for.”
Ne, Fi, Se PoLR. Sounds a bit Alphian, actually.
“How do you see your own Jewish identity?
I am proud of being a Jew-although I must admit it took me practically a lifetime to get there. I have suffered from the low self-esteem that is the bane of the assimilationist Jew.
This is a heavy load that I could shed only when I recognized my success.
I identify being a Jew with being in a minority. I believe that there is such a thing as a Jewish genius; one need only look at the Jewish achievements in science, in economic life, or in the arts. These were the results of Jews' efforts to transcend their minority status, and to achieve something universal. Jews have learned to consider every question from many different viewpoints, even the most contradictory ones. Being in the minority, they are practically forced into critical thinking. If there is anything of this Jewish genius in me, it is simply the ability to think critically. To that extent, Jewishness is an essential element of my personality and, as I said, I am very proud of that.”
Aristocracy
“Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to..."
Se PoLR
“Although we cannot rid ourselves of misconceptions, we can correct them when we become aware of them.”
Non-valued Ni
“I'm not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.”
Non-valued Fe (as ignorance of public approval), Self-Confidence group
“But I don't like working. I do the absolute minimum that is necessary to reach a decision. There are many people who love working. They amass an inordinate amount of information, much more than is necessary to reach a conclusion. And they become attached to certain investments because they know them intimately. I am different. I concentrate on the essentials. When I have to, I work furiously because I am furious that I have to work. When I don't have to, I don't work.”
Strong Ni, but valued Si. Note that this attitude towards work and getting out of the comfort zone is the opposite of the style of the typical LIE.
“We are accustomed to think of events as a sequence of facts: one set of facts follows another in a never-ending chain. When a situation has thinking participants, the chain does not lead directly from fact to fact. It links a fact to the participants' thinking and then connects the participants' thinking to the next set of facts.”
Ni through Fi
“We need to maintain law and order. We need to maintain peace in the world. We need to protect the environment. We need to have some degree of social justice, equality of opportunity. The markets are not designed to take care of those needs. That's a political process. And the market fundamentalists have managed to reduce providing those public goods.”
Peripheral way of thinking, more precisely, Delta
“Yes. I never claimed credit for it. I was involved in the process. As coach, I said to him that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the risk-reward relationship is extremely favorable, and therefore we should play it on a larger scale than normal. And he took my advice.”
Ne over Ni, again
“In economics, contingent, time- and context-bound theories may yield more useful explanations and predictions than timeless and universal generalizations based on ungrounded assumptions.”
Non-valued Ti
George Soros
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
