George Soros

Fundraising for ballot initiatives is a rich man's game. In 2006 in California, some two-thirds of all donations to ballot measures came in the amount of $1 million or more, according to a recent report from the Center for Governmental Studies. Yes, two-thirds of all donations.

So the latest big cash dumps in California are business as usual. Peter Sperling just gave $2.5 million to Prop 7, an alternative fuels measure. And George Soros found some spare change with the lint in his pants -- about $400,000 -- and threw it to Prop 5, which would expand drug rehabilitation and loosen some penalties for drug offenders. Soros' total donations to the measure? $1.4 million. So far. The Sacramento Bee has details.

The New America Foundation hosted a conference call with financier and author George Soros this morning during which he shared ideas from his recent book, A new Paradigm for Global Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means. Soros said, albeit with some chagrin, that the current financial crisis "pulled him out of retirement." Apparently it pulled him far enough to write a new book about boom and bust cycles, regulation of credit, and the current financial turmoil. I wonder whether his book was due to some sense of social obligation or he was just drawn by the excitement of the current crisis. Given his philanthropic efforts, I suspect it was a combination of both.

I want to make three comments after listening to the call. First, George Soros came off as charming, self-effacing and brilliant. His analysis of booms and busts are correct and insightful, but not revolutionary. And finally, his prescriptions for policy action are not concrete, but they get at the heart of the problem of our current regulatory structure. There is little need to comment on the first topic, so I'll skip right to the second two.