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===Criticism of political activism===
===Other===
Investors Business Daily has criticized Soros for funding organizations such as ] and has claimed that Soros is not transparent in the way he gives away his money. <ref>, Investors Business Daily</ref> In an editorial in September 2007, Investors Business Daily criticized Soros for funding organizations such as ] and has claimed that Soros is not transparent in the way he gives away his money. <ref>, Investors Business Daily</ref>


==Books== ==Books==

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"Soros" redirects here. For other meanings see Soros (disambiguation).
George Soros
George Soros speaking in Malaysia
Born (1930-08-12) August 12, 1930 (age 94)
Hungary Budapest, Hungary
Occupation(s)speculator, investor, philanthropist, political activist
Spouse(s)Twice divorced (Annaliese Witschak and Susan Weber Soros)
ChildrenRobert, Andrea, Jonathan, Alexander, Gregory
Websitehttp://www.georgesoros.com

George Soros (pronounced ) (born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz) is an American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist. He has also promoted democracy in Eastern Europe.

Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. His support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, as well as the Czechoslovakian human rights organization Charter 77, contributed to ending Soviet Union political dominance in those countries. His funding and organization of Georgia's Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been "greatly exaggerated." In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush's bid for re-election in 2004.

Soros is famously known for "breaking the Bank of England" on Black Wednesday in 1992. With an estimated current net worth of around $8.5 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 80th-richest person in the world.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in 2003 in the foreword of Soros' book The Alchemy of Finance:

"George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but - more important - tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior."

Biography

Family

George Soros is the son of the Esperanto writer Teodoro Schwartz. Teodoro (also known as Tivadar) was a Hungarian Jew who was a prisoner of war during and after World War I and eventually escaped from Russia to rejoin his family in Budapest.

The family changed its name in 1936 from Schwartz to Soros, in response to the Fascist threat to Jews. Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because it has a meaning. Though the specific meaning is left unstated in Kaufmann's biography, in Hungarian "soros" means "next in line, or designated successor", and in Esperanto it means "will soar". Tivadar wrote of his ordeal to survive in Fascist Hungary, and help many people escape it, in his book Maskerado. George Soros later said that he "grew up in a Jewish, anti-semitic home," and that his parents were "uncomfortable with their religious roots."

George Soros has been married and divorced twice, to Annaliese Witschak and to Susan Weber Soros. He has five children: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan (with his first wife, Annaliese), Alexander and Gregory (with his second wife, Susan). His older brother Paul Soros is an engineer, and is also a well-known philanthropist, investor, and New York socialite.

Native Hungary, and move to England

Soros was thirteen years old when Nazi Germany took military control over its wavering ally Hungary (March 21, 1944), and started exterminating Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust. Soros worked briefly for the Jewish Council, which had been established by the Nazis, to deliver messages to Jewish lawyers being called for deportation. Soros was not aware of the consequence of the messages. To avoid his son being apprehended by the Nazis, his father had Soros spend the summer of 1944 living with a non-Jewish Ministry of Agriculture employee, posing as his godson.

In the following year, Soros survived the battle of Budapest, as Soviet and Nazi forces fought house-to-house through the city. Soros first traded currencies during the Hungarian hyperinflation of 1945-1946.

In 1946, Soros escaped the Soviet occupation by participating in an Esperanto youth congress in the West. Soros was taught to speak the language from birth and thus is one of the rare native Esperanto speakers.

Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, Soros funded himself by taking jobs as a railway porter and a waiter at Quaglino's restaurant where he was told that with hard work he might one day become head waiter. He also worked in a mannequin factory, but was fired for being too slow at putting on the heads. He eventually secured an entry-level position with London merchant bank Singer & Friedlander.

Move to the United States

In 1956 he moved to the United States, where he worked as an arbitrage trader with F. M. Mayer from 1956 to 1959 and as an analyst with Wertheim and Company from 1959 to 1963. Throughout this time, but mostly in the 1950s, Soros developed a philosophy of "reflexivity" based on the ideas of Popper. Reflexivity, as used by Soros, is the belief that self-awareness is part of the environment: actions tend to cause disruptions in economic equilibriums, which may run counter to the progression of free-market systems.

Soros realized, however, that he would not make any money from the concept of reflexivity until he went into investing on his own. He began to investigate how to deal in investments. From 1963 to 1973 he worked at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, where he attained the position of vice-president. Soros finally concluded that he was a better investor than he was a philosopher or an executive. In 1967 he persuaded the company to set up an offshore investment fund, First Eagle, for him to run; in 1969 the company founded a second fund for Soros, the Double Eagle hedge fund.

When investment regulations restricted his ability to run the funds as he wished, he quit his position in 1973 and established a private investment company that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund. He has stated that his intent was to earn enough money on Wall Street to support himself as an author and philosopher - he calculated that $500,000 after five years would be possible and adequate. After all those years, his net worth reached an estimated $11 billion. He is also a former member of the Carlyle investment group.

Business

Soros is the founder of Soros Fund Management. In 1970 he co-founded the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers. It returned 3,365% during the next ten years (42.5% per year for 10 years), and created the bulk of the Soros fortune. Rogers "retired" from the fund in 1980.

Currency speculation

On Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992), Soros became immediately famous when he sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds, profiting from the Bank of England's reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency.

Finally, the Bank of England was forced to withdraw the currency out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and to devalue the pound sterling, and Soros earned an estimated US$ 1.1 billion in the process. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England."

The Times October 26, 1992, Monday quoted Soros as saying: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell."

According to Steven Drobny, Stanley Druckenmiller, who traded under Soros, originally saw the weakness in the pound. "Soros' contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position," in accord with Druckenmiller's own research and instincts.

In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish ASEAN for welcoming Myanmar as a member. Later, he called Soros a moron. Thai nationals have called Soros "an economic war criminal" who "sucks the blood from the people".

Partners

George Soros's most successful partners at Quantum fund have been Jim Rogers, Victor Niederhoffer, and Stanley Druckenmiller, all of whom are famous traders in their own rights.

Insider trading charges

In 1988, he was asked to join a takeover attempt of the French bank Société Générale. He declined to participate in the bid, but did later buy a number of shares in the company. French authorities began an investigation in 1989, and in 2002 a French court ruled that it was insider trading as defined under French securities laws and fined him $2 million which was the amount that he made using the insider information.

Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing and said news of the takeover was public knowledge.

His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14 2006. In December, 2006 he appealled to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the 14 year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing.

Philanthropy

George Soros (left) and James H. Billington.

Soros has been active as a philanthropist since the 1970s, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa, and began funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain.

Soros' philanthropic funding in Central and Eastern Europe mostly occurs through the Open Society Institute (OSI) and national Soros Foundations, which sometimes go under other names, e.g., the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland. As of 2003, PBS estimated that he had given away a total of $4 billion.

He has promoted non-violent efforts to increase democracy in many countries.

The OSI says it has spent about $400 million annually in recent years.

TIME Magazine in 2007 cited two specific projects - $100 million toward internet infrastructure for regional Russian universities; and $50 million for the Millennium Promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa - while noting that Soros has given $742 million to projects in the U.S., and given away a total of more than $6 billion.

Other notable projects have included aid to scientists and universities throughout Central and Eastern Europe, help to civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, worldwide efforts to repeal drug prohibition laws, and Transparency International. Soros also pledged an endowment of €420 million to the Central European University (CEU). The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus and his microfinance bank Grameen Bank received support from the OSI.

According to the National Review the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who has defended alleged terrorists in court and was sentenced to 2⅓ years in prison for "providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy" via a press conference for a client. An OSI spokeswoman said "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support."

In September 2006, Soros departed from his characteristic sponsorship of democracy building programs, pledging $50 million to the Jeffrey Sachs-led Millennium Promise to help eradicate extreme poverty in Africa. Noting the connection between bad governance and poverty, he remarked on the humanitarian value of the project.

He received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research (New York), the University of Oxford in 1980, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University in 1991. Soros also received the Yale International Center for Finance Award from the Yale School of Management in 2000 as well as the Laurea Honoris Causa, the highest honor of the University of Bologna in 1995.

Philosophy

Education and beliefs

Soros has a keen interest in philosophy, and his philosophical outlook is largely influenced by Karl Popper, under whom he studied at the London School of Economics. His Open Society Institute is named after Popper's two volume work, The Open Society and Its Enemies, and Soros's ongoing philosophical commitment to the principle of 'fallibilism' (that anything he believes may in fact be wrong, and is therefore to be questioned and improved) stems from Popper's philosophy. Some critics argue that Soros' static political beliefs appear to conflict with the critical rationalism espoused by Popper, though Soros argues that these beliefs were arrived at through such rationalism.

Reflexivity, financial markets, and economic theory

Soros' writings focus heavily on the concept of reflexivity, where the biases of individuals are seen as entering into market transactions, potentially changing the fundamentals of the economy. Soros argued that such transitions in the fundamentals of the economy are typically marked by disequilibrium rather than equilibrium in the economy, and that the conventional economic theory of the market (the 'efficient market hypothesis') does not apply in these situations.

Whether Soros is theoretically right or wrong on this issue, he certainly has the market credentials and proven track record to effectively maintain that his theory of reflexivity is practically relevant in the marketplace — at least for him. Soros has popularized the concepts of dynamic disequilibrium, static disequilibrium, and near-equilibrium conditions.

Reflexivity is based in three main ideas:

(1) Reflexivity is best observed under special conditions where investor bias grows and spreads throughout the investment arena. Examples of factors that may give rise to this bias include (a) equity leveraging or (b) the trend-following habits of speculators.

(2) Reflexivity appears intermittently since it is most likely to be revealed under certain conditions; i.e., the equilibrium process's character is best considered in terms of probabilities.

(3) Investors' observation of and participation in the capital markets may at times influence valuations AND fundamental conditions or outcomes.

View of potential problems in the capitalist free market system

Despite working as an investor and currency speculator (his fortune in 2004 was estimated at US$7 billion), he argues that the current system of financial speculation undermines healthy economic development in many underdeveloped countries. Soros blames many of the world's problems on the failures inherent in what he characterizes as market fundamentalism. His opposition to many aspects of globalization has made him a controversial figure.

Victor Niederhoffer said of Soros: "Most of all, George believed even then in a mixed economy, one with a strong central international government to correct for the excesses of self-interest."

Soros draws a distinction between being a participant in the market and working to change the rules that market participants must follow.

Political activism

Opposition to the Soviet Union

According to Neil Clark (writing in the New Statesman):

(t)he conventional view, shared by many on the left, is that socialism collapsed in eastern Europe because of its systemic weaknesses and the political elite's failure to build popular support.
That may be partly true, but Soros's role was crucial. From 1979, he distributed $3m a year to dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union. In 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements and independent media.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Soros' funding has continued to play an important role in the former Soviet sphere. His funding and organization of Georgia's Rose Revolution was considered crucial to its success by Russian and Western observers, although Soros has said that his role has been "greatly exaggerated."

Despite his hand in the fall of the Soviet Union, this has not dissuaded conservative critics in the United States from repeatedly attacking him. Some Republicans have echoed similar stances.

Criticism of Bush Administration

In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, "if someone guaranteed it", and many continue to state this as Soros's position even after Soros clarified the humorous nature of the statement in a Q&A session at the end of his March 3, 2004 address to California's Commonwealth Club.

Soros gave $3 million to the Center for American Progress, committed $5 million to MoveOn, while he and his friend Peter Lewis each gave America Coming Together $10 million. (All were groups that worked to support Democrats in the 2004 election.) On September 28, 2004 he dedicated more money to the campaign and kicked off his own multi-state tour with a speech: Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

The online transcript to this speech received many hits after Dick Cheney accidentally referred to FactCheck.org as "factcheck.com" in the Vice Presidential debate, causing the owner of that domain to redirect all traffic to Soros's site.

Soros was not a large donor to US political causes until the U.S. presidential election, 2004, but according to the Center for Responsive Politics, during the 2003-2004 election cycle, Soros donated $23,581,000 to various 527 Groups dedicated to defeating President Bush. Despite Soros' efforts, Bush was reelected to a second term as president in U.S. presidential election, 2004.

After Bush's reelection in 2004, Soros and other wealthy liberal political donors backed a new political fundraising group called Democracy Alliance which aims to support the goals of the U.S. Democratic Party.

Soros has been criticized for his large donations, as he also pushed for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 which was intended to ban "soft money" contributions to federal election campaigns. Soros has responded that his donations to unaffiliated organizations do not raise the same corruption issues as donations directly to the candidates or political parties.

A Republican National Committee spokeswoman said,

"It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it. George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party."

Harken Energy, a firm partly owned by Soros, did business with George W. Bush in 1986 by buying his oil company, Spectrum 7.

His most recent book, The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of The War on Terror, was published in June 2006.

Gun control

Directly and through his organization Open Society Institute (OSI), he has funded various gun control organizations, such as the Tides Foundation, the HELP Network and SAFE Colorado. He and seven friends founded their own political committee — Campaign for a Progressive Future — and spent $2 million on political activities in 2000, including providing the prime financial backing for the Million Mom March. OSI has supported UN efforts to create international gun control regulations and has singled out the United States for failing to go along with the international consensus on protective gun control measures.

Critics

Criticism of financial activities

In an August 2004 appearance on Chris Wallace's FOX News Sunday, Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert (Republican), stated, "We don't know where George Soros' money comes from. We don't know where it comes from, from the left, and you don't know where it comes in the right. You know, Soros' money, some of that is coming from overseas. It could be drug money. We don't know where it comes from." Soros responded to Hastert by saying, "by smearing me with false charges and mischaracterizations, you are attempting to stifle critical debate and intimidate those who believe this administration is leading the country in a ruinous direction. Now that I have called you on your false accusation, you are using additional smear tactics." Soros filed an official complaint with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Soros claimed that Hastert's comments "strongly suggests a deliberate effort to use smear tactics, intimidation and falsehoods to silence criticism."

In 2006, Hastert criticized Soros again, this time in regards to the controversy over whether or not Hastert should have acted on information regarding Rep. Mark Foley: "The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros."

Views on anti-Semitism

At a Jewish forum in New York City, Soros partially attributed a recent resurgence of anti-Semitism to the policies of Israel and the United States, and to successful Jews such as himself:

There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that. It's not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I'm critical of those policies... If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish. I can't see how one could confront it directly... I'm also very concerned about my own role because the new anti-Semitism holds that the Jews rule the world... As an unintended consequence of my actions... I also contribute to that image.

In a subsequent article for the New York Review of Books, Soros emphasized that

I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

Criticism of political activism

In an editorial in September 2007, Investors Business Daily criticized Soros for funding organizations such as Move On and has claimed that Soros is not transparent in the way he gives away his money.

Books

Authored or co-authored

  • The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror (PublicAffairs, 2006) ISBN 1-58648-359-1
  • With MoveOn.org, MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004 ISBN 1-930722-29-X
  • The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2003) ISBN 1-58643-217-3 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2004; ISBN 1-58648-292-0)
  • George Soros on Globalization (PublicAffairs, 2002) ISBN 1-58648-125-8 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2005; ISBN 1-52648-278-5)
  • Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (PublicAffairs, 2001) ISBN 1-58648-039-7
  • With Mark Amadeus Notturno, Science and the Open Society: The Future of Karl Popper's Philosophy (Central European University Press, 2000) ISBN 963-9116-69-6 (paperback: Central European University Press, 2000; ISBN 943-9116-70-X)
  • The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (PublicAffairs, 1998) ISBN 1-891220-27-4
  • Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (John Wiley, 1995) ISBN 0-471-12014-6 (paperback; Wiley, 1995; ISBN 0-371-11977-6)
  • Underwriting Democracy: Encouraging Free Enterprise and Democratic Reform Among the Soviets and in Eastern Europe (Free Press, 1991) ISBN 0-02-930285-4 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2004; ISBN 1-58948-227-0)
  • Opening the Soviet System (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990) ISBN 0-297-82155-9 (paperback: Perseus Books, 1996; ISBN 0-8133-1205-1)
  • The Alchemy of Finance (Simon & Schuster, 1988) ISBN 0-671-66338-4 (paperback: Wiley, 2003; ISBN 0-471-44549-5)

Biographies

  • Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire by Michael T. Kaufman (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) ISBN 0-375-40585-2
  • Soros: The Unauthorized Biography, the Life, Times and Trading Secrets of the World's Greatest Investor by Robert Slater (McGraw-Hill, 1997) ISBN 0-7863-1247-5

Journalism

Authored

About

Scholarly perspectives

  • Bryant, C. G. A. (2002). 'George Soros's theory of reflexivity: a comparison with the theories of Giddens and Beck and a consideration of its practical value', Economy and Society, 31 (1), pp. 112-131.
  • Cross, R. and D. Strachan (1997). 'On George Soros and economic analysis', Kyklos, 50, pp. 561-74.
  • Pettis, Michael (2001). The Volatility Machine: Emerging Economies and the Threat of Financial Collapse, Oxford University Press.

Speeches

Interviews

References

File:TimeCoverSoros090197.jpg
Time magazine cover, September 1, 1997 reading "Saint George and his unlikely crusades"
  1. ^ http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_George-Soros_L9II.html
  2. William Shawcross, "Turning Dollars into Change," Time Magazine, September 1, 1997
  3. George Soros, A Biographical Note, dated May 2006, at www.georgesoros.com
  4. Kaufman, Michael T., Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire, Alfred A. Knopf: 2002
  5. Kaufman, Michael T., p. 24
  6. Slater, R.: "Soros: The Unauthorized Biography", page 30
  7. Holocaust Encyclopedia
  8. Kaufman, Michael T., Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire, Alfred A. Knopf: 2002, p. 32-33
  9. Steven Drobny, Inside the House of Money, John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, 2006.
  10. A question of opennes (asiaweek.com)
  11. Opportunity Lost (asiaweek.com)
  12. David Brancaccio interviews George Soros, Now, PBS, September 12, 2003, accessed Feb. 8, 2007.
  13. Insider trading conviction of Soros is upheld (International Herald Tribune)
  14. Soros appeals conviction for insider trading, Billionaire takes French conviction to European court (International Herald Tribune)December 14, 2006
  15. David Brancaccio interviews George Soros, Now, PBS, September 12, 2003, accessed Feb. 8, 2007.
  16. TIME 100, The Power Givers, George Soros, TIME Magazine, May 14, 2007 accessed May 21, 2007
  17. York, Byron, Soros Funded Stewart Defense, National Review Online, accessed February 7, 2007
  18. Philanthropist Gives $50 Million to Help Aid the Poor in Africa
  19. Soros Profile in the New Statesman, by Neil Clark] accessed June 6, 2007
  20. For example: Savage, Michael, Savage Nation radio broadcast on the Talk Radio Network, 3 June 2004
  21. Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush
  22. Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush
  23. Cheney Drops the Ball
  24. http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/FW1206.pdf
  25. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language=printer
  26. Book review at Forbes.com
  27. http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=19256
  28. Hastert defiant in page scandal
  29. jta.org
  30. Soros, George. "On Israel, America and AIPAC." New York Review of Books, April 12, 2007.
  31. The Soros Threat to Democracy, Investors Business Daily

External links

See also

Categories: