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I had an appointment to interview legendary financier George Soros, who was in town recently. A colleague asked me to get some financial tips from the man who made billions from the stock market in previous crises while others got burned. If anyone had foolproof investment strategies, this veteran market player would surely be the man.

Since the world is still reeling from the global financial crisis, I thought I had better acquaint myself with the whys and wherefores of the market meltdown.

I got hold of Soros’s book with a suitably cogent title, “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means,” and was ready for a lesson on supply and demand, bull and bear markets and the workings of capitalist economic theory. Soros, after all, should know. He has made so much money in the market he is now happy to spread it around with philanthropic activities.

The “what happened” part of the credit crisis is relatively straightforward. There was a credit crisis because people who were given loans to buy houses in the United States couldn’t pay the loans back.

Why though was there a total financial market meltdown? Because the banks that gave the loans to those people sold their debts to the global financial markets as investment products, with everyone believing that house prices would continue to rise. Why did financial institutions invest in the instruments? Because prices were on the up and investors were feeling pretty bullish about making piles of money.

Why did the market collapse? Because the debtors couldn’t pay their housing loans back and suddenly there were a lot of houses up for sale, which brought down house prices. This caused the credits to go toxic, taking the real economy along with them.

And that’s the way the market works. People either buy or sell. Make money or lose money. The trick is in knowing when to buy or sell. We have had booms and busts in the past and will continue to have them. Government are afraid to interfere in the free market because these theories have formed the basis of capitalism since the days of their grandfathers.

At least, that was my naive understanding of it all.

Getting advice directly from a financial wizard who has managed to emerge from busts not only with relatively few bruises, but often with a handsome profit, was a priceless opportunity. What are the secrets of becoming a successful speculator? How to truly understand the market and make accurate predictions about the future?

Reading the book and then finally meeting the person, however, led to a revelation — in the sense that the encounter revealed less about the workings of the financial markets and more about the mind of Soros. The financial markets, according to him, do not function according to the prevailing theories of economic scientists, which state that markets behave in particular ways that can be predicted.

On the contrary, most of the time both the markets and the regulators don’t really know what’s going on. This is because financial markets are human activities and humans can’t really go about their activities without bias or subjectivity. In other words, nobody can accurately predict how markets will behave, so how can economists come up with dependable theories or governing laws about things based on misconceptions?

The new paradigm Soros offers is one based on accepting that markets are fallible because we’re humans and humans, even though we think and analyze a lot, are fallible. He calls the concept “reflexivity.” Or something like that. After all, I’m human too and my understanding is most likely imperfect.

Is this a new economic theory? No. It’s a philosophy. Take note people: George Soros is not an economist or even a financial guru. He is a philosopher. Now we know.

So how about that investment advice that could make one as successful as him?

Since it seems that the only certain thing about financial markets is uncertainty, we would do just as well by trusting to luck, backing hunches or making guesses when investing in the market as we would by taking expert financial advice. After all, the small print always says that past performances are not indicators of future performances and prices can go down as well as up. Which is a clear indication that the free market really is blind.

Which makes me think the safest place to invest my money at the moment is in my piggy bank and the best place to borrow money from is my sister.

Desi Anwar is a senior anchor and writer. She can be contacted at www.desianwar.com and www.dailyavocado.net.