WWGSD?

What would George Soros do?

Soros has made tons and tons of money over the years by timing the market correctly.

Here's a fascinating column he wrote for Financial Times. As much as I enjoyed the column, I paid attention to the sidebar where he writes about what went right and wrong for his fund for 2008.

As for the welfare of the United States and capitalism in general, Soros thinks we need to keep capitalizing the banks, and that we also need to overhaul the mortgage system.

He also thinks that America will be better off by developing alternative energy sources. But to make that economically feasible, he calls for an end to cheap oil, proposing a floor price of $70 a barrel - about double today's value.

I'm glad to see the era's great economic thinkers putting their heads into this, but you have to realize that they're looking out for their own bottom lines too. His prescription calls for a lot of market meddling.

While I don't want to see my 401K continue to falter, at some point we have to ask ourselves: Is this capitalism? What ever happened to simple supply and demand?

Availability of credit surely is a great economic generator. But only when extended to people and companies that can pay it back. In the long haul that's what got us in trouble, and now all that anyone can do is scream about there not being enough credit in the system.