I Love You, George Soros

I loved that George Soros kept it real in Congress and said, flat-out, the hedge funds will be decimated.

At one point, he called for stricter margin requirements. Right before the Great Crash in 1929, margin requirements were headed toward 50%. In fact, economists cite this as an indication that brokers were beginning to panic as the crash neared.

Now, farther down this blog, I highlight CNBC's highly specious Million Dollar Challenge. It attracts people to trade currencies for big prizes, like airplanes and a half-million dollars. People are invited to open a $25 account, which mysteriously, with the magic of leverage, will enable them to trade $9,000 dollars in "REAL money." And this, without people making any deposits whatever. No margin requirements here.

I suspect that margin requirements have not gone up lately, as a rational market would make them do with such risk out there. I can't find any stats on our present margin requirements ('cause I'm just too fucking lazy to do the search), but...