The Alchemy of Finance Paperback – June 15, 2015

Good read, book arrived quickly and in great condition

Wonderful tools that any and everyone can use. This book explores the financial world in a way that is easy to understand. You don’t get lossed in financial Mumbo jumbo. This book breaks down complex concepts in an easy to digest way. I would recommend this read to all of my friends and family.

Have read a lot of reviews about this book. Some complain that it rambles on. It does, and thats what I liked so much about it. Like Mr. Soros's explanation of reflexivity you really have to contemplate this book with "reflexivity". In other words, if you come to this tome thinking you are going to learn some of his billionaire secrets, forget about it. He is too smart for that. He is not going to spell it out for you. Hoewever if you can read between the lines and learn by doing so, then that is where your free education from Mr.Soros appears. A lot can be learned from words and patterns of speech, and to hear his perceptions of life and market conditions, one can walk away with valuable info about how to time the market and life correctly.Wanted to listen to this book since hearing Mr O'Reilly (with whom I respect) harp about Soros so much nightly. If nothing else just want to hear the "fair and balanced" sake of the dispute.If you like listening to things that are somewhat abstract, I recommend this book. If your trying to get detailed info about how Mr. Soros made billions in hopes of repeating his success, start by studying Finance and Economics at your local community college.His words are like a beautiful Operatic Aria. His Political schemes a perk of success. And, you have to admire his freedom to do that."That which does not destroy us, only makes us stronger.

Soros has written a thoughtful and interesting book.However,there is nothing that is new theoretically.It was all said in a much more detailed and specific form in Keynes's A Treatise on Probability(TP;1921),where uncertainty(Soros's uncertainty principle-see pp.6-10,40) was analyzed mathematically using the variable called the weight of the evidence,w, in chapter 26( the weight of the argument in chapter 6 provided the logical analysis).Keynes used the term uncertainty in the GT to denote the same basic phenomenon applied to decision making involving a significant lack of knowledge and information on (a) investment in long lived durable capital goods subject to technological innovation over time(Daniel Ellsberg's nearly identical concept of ambiguity improves on Keynes's completely original formulation),(b)financial markets, and (c)liquidity preference decisions concerning the amount of liquid assets to hold for speculative purposes.Keynesian expectations are liable to sudden changes because they are not representable by the normal distributions's standard deviation(Risk),which is the basic foundation of E Fama's Efficient Market Hypothesis,Milton Friedman's Monetarism,Robert Lucas's rational expectations,and Prescott and Kydland's real business cycle theory,etc.Keynes's analysis appears in chapter 12,pp.239-241 of chapter 17, and in pp.314-320 of the General Theory(1936;GT).It is interesting to note that Soros's own method of dealing with uncertainty,by using one's instinct and intuition ,is identical to the manner in which it was handled by Keynes.Practically all of the examples from the financial markets used by Soros to show how his uncertainty principle(the reference to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is defective since the probability distributions are known.What Heisenberg meant by uncertainty was risk.Only one of the two hypothesized probability distributions in Heisenberg's example can exist at any one moment of time) is operationalized could just as easily have been mistaken for Keynes's chapter 12 analysis in the GT.The value in Soros's book is that it provides a more modern set of examples that updates Keynes's chapter 12 analysis of how uncertainty impacts decision making.Risk is a very special case that occurs when there is no uncertainty about the future.Uncertainty automatically makes probability estimates indeterminate.They become intervals.Soros will have to be much more specific in the future about his uncertainty principle(reflexivity) so that a reader will be able to differentiate what Soros has done from what Keynes did(one must also mention Frank Knight's and Joseph Schumpeter's contributions in this area,although they are not nearly as specific and technical as the contributions of Keynes and Ellsberg).Soros needs to be devote much more time to reading and digesting Keynes's works.The few one liners that refer to Keynes in this book illustrate that Soros has not done all of his homework yet.A clear cut comparison -contrast between Keynes and Soros would allow a reader to decide what is original in Soros's approach and what is merely a variation on Keynes's theme of uncertainty impacting many of the most important financial and investment decisions that will determine the future.

May I say I have read but 40 pages and concur that this book definitely provides insight casually overlooked by those hotheaded enough to dismiss things as this or that. Perhaps Mr. Soros is stating at protracted length by the girth of the book but he stocks it with many examples which I find helpful (I read out of order so my 40 pgs are all over the book). Reflexivity seems to be some aftermath of relativity and/or a socialized version of Newton's 3rd law, where the reaction is not reciprocated 180 degrees or of equal momentum, but at a variant angle at a sensible force. I read along and in reading this I am complementing my Bergson "Matter and Memory" which lends great weight to the textual stretches Soros regales in. George Soros has quite credibly depicted the details of empirical business to a degree most ignore and operate off of with heuristic reaction. A man who spells out what everyone is just saying can profit from the faults of cadence and dis equanimity of many people's interpretation. This basically continues Marx's reductive division between singular and plural, as necessitated by communicable mediums, and results in asymmetry. Trends are social and crest and waver, but formed in certain mediums as are waves in an ocean and by shifts in the air current and to the land/gravity one can gauge to some modicum of satisfaction the tides to come. Nothing is 100 percent due or endogenously self-directing or regulating as we are members of a system and therefore produce tremors in our actions which disrupt or affect our observations (very Heisenberg indeed).

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