Of all the financial titans and philanthropists of the 20th century none are more complex or mysterious than George Soros. Like Carnegie, JP Morgan, and the Rockefellers, he amassed billions through ruthless business decisions only to turn around and give away most of his fortune to advance his own personal philosophy. He can move world financial markets simply by voicing an opinion. Or destabilize a government by buying and selling its currency. He also pledged more aid last year to help people in Russia than the US government did.

But now George Soros is worried. He thinks the global economy is coming apart at the seams and that the world needs to be protected / from people like George Soros.

We may now think that everything is fine. But the fact is the system is broke and it needs fixing. – Soros.

Interview cont’d

What you’re doing is asking for some form of regulation to protect against you.

Soros cont’d

Well. I’m a player and I think all players should be regulated. There has to be rules of the game.

Host cont’d

Right now his Quantum Group hedge fund moves $14 billion of rich investors’ money around the world every day looking for profits and answering to no one. Soros makes huge bets on whole countries and economies. Last year, when he saw cracks in the Asia boom, he began selling the currency in Thailand. Traders in Hong Kong followed suit triggering a financial crisis that plunged much of Asia into a depression.

Interview cont’d

In the last two years you’ve been blamed for financial collapse in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia -

Soros cont’d

:Srs II:

Host cont’d

“All of the above.”

Soros cont’d

Yeah.

Host cont’d

Are you that powerful?

Soros cont’d

I think there’s a great misunderstanding.

Host cont’d

The Prime Minister of Malaysia said the region spent 40 years trying to build up its economy and along comes a “moron like Soros” with a lot of money and it’s all over. He called you / a criminal.

Soros cont’d

It’s easier for him to blame an outside force than to admit that they were mismanaging their economy and their currency. The French finance minister talked about hanging speculators from lamp posts.

Host cont’d

Soros says the Asian currencies would’ve collapsed even if he hadn’t been in the market. They were overvalued. He says people tend to follow his lead because he’s been so successful.

Soros cont’d

I think that I’m being blamed for everything. I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.

:J Grnt:

(Soros) is a carnivore of the first order.

Host cont’d

Jim Grant is the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and one of Wall Street’s most respected analysts. He never tires of watching Soros in part because of the huge bets he’s willing to place on his hunches.

Grant cont’d

He has always amazed the people he’s worked with with his audacity and is willingness to back up his commitments with enormous sums of money that cause the blood to drain from ordinary mortals faces.

Host cont’d

Like risking $2 billion in Russia.

:Rssia:

When the Russian market began falling apart in August Soros was the country’s largest single investor. He called the US Treasury and asked Uncle Sam for $7 billion to prop up the ruble. When US officials failed to intervene Soros wrote a letter to the Financial Times of London saying he thought the Russian currency should be devalued by as much as 25%.

A few words from Soros were enough to cause panic selling that fuelled the crash.

Interview cont’d

What’s it like to have a statement you make have such serious, grievous consequences?? It looks to me like, in a number of situations, you can take a position against a currency or make a statement and the whole country falls apart.

Soros cont’d

Well. It’s a tremendous sense of responsibility, actually, and it’s also a humbling experience because I am actually trying to do the right thing and sometimes what I do has an unintended, negative consequence as it did in Russia.

Host cont’d

For both the Russian middle class and for Soros who lost his $2 billion.

:Hti:

Whatever his motivations, no one can accuse him of greed. He’s backed away from the day to day operation of his businesses and is giving away his billions now, with the same determination that he made them, in places like Haiti; a country that has less money in the bank than he does.

:Hti II:

Last month he brought the First Lady with him for a look at some of the projects his foundation is funding.

This year Soros plans to give away almost $500 million around the world.

In Bosnia, when the water supply to Sarajevo was cut off at the height of the siege, it was Soros who wrote a check to jerry rig a pipeline through an abandoned highway tunnel.

:Hlbrk:

$5 million up front can be more valuable than $50 million a year or two later.

Host cont’d

Ambassador Richard Holbrook brokered the peace in Bosnia.

Holbrook cont’d

At one point, after the Dayton Peace Agreements in Bosnia in 1995, for a considerable period of time, (Soros) had given more money to implement the peace agreements than the US government had. He just could move that fast!

Host cont’d

In Russia he pledged $100 million to help scientists who might otherwise have sold their expertise to bidders like Iran or Iraq. In Eastern Europe he’s educated a new generation and in Ukraine he spent millions re-training the old soviet military.

Interview cont’d

At the center of George Soros there is an inherent contradiction.

Soros cont’d

Which is?

Host cont’d

Which is on one hand you’re the capitalist who does not care “about the social consequences” of his act and on the other hand you are a philanthropist who cares only about social consequences. How do you resolve the two??

Soros cont’d

Recognizing that as a competitor I’ve got to compete to win. As a human being, I am concerned about the society in which I live.

Host cont’d

Which George Soros am I talking to now? The amoral George Soros or the moral George Soros?

Soros cont’d

It’s one person. It’s one person who at one time engages in amoral activities and the rest of the time tries to be moral.

Host cont’d

:Srs III:

To understand the complexities and contradictions in his personality you have to back to the very beginning, to Budapest, where George Soros was born 68 years ago to parents who were wealthy, well educated, and Jewish.

When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944 George Soros’ father was a successful lawyer. He lived on an island in the Danube and liked to commute to work in a rowboat. But knowing there were problems ahead for the Jews he decided to split his family up. He bought them forged papers and bribed a government official to take 14 year old George Soros in and swear that he was his Christian godson.

But survival carried a heavy price tag. While hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being shipped off to the death camps George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds confiscating property from the Jews.

Interview cont’d

You’re a Hungarian Jew who escaped the holocaust by posing as a Christian.

Soros cont’d

Right.

Host cont’d

And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps?

Soros cont’d

Right. I was 14 years old and I would say that’s when my character was made.

Host cont’d

In what way?

Soros cont’d

That one should...

:Srs IV:

One should understand and anticipate events… It was a tremendous threat of evil. It was a very personal experience of evil.

Host cont’d

My understanding is that you went out with this “protector” of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Soros cont’d

Yes.

Host cont’d

… went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property of the Jews.

Soros cont’d

That’s right. Yes.

Host cont’d

That sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult??

Soros cont’d

Uh. Not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t see the connection but it created no problem at all.

Host cont’d

No feeling of guilt?

Soros cont’d

No.

Host cont’d

For example, “I’m Jewish and here I am watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.” None of that?

Soros cont’d

Well. Of course I could be on the other side. I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away, uh, but there was no sense I shouldn’t be there because there was – Well, actually, (in a) funny way it’s just like in markets that if I weren’t there (of course I wasn’t doing it) REDsomebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not (I was only a spectator) the property was being taken away. So – I had no role in taking away that property so I had no sense of guilt.RED END

Host cont’d

Are you religious?

Soros cont’d

No.

Host cont’d

Do you believe in God?

Soros cont’d

No.

Host cont’d

Soros told us he believes God was created by man and not the other way around; which may be why he thinks he can smooth out the world’s imperfections.

When we went with him to Ukraine he was treated like a visiting head of state and was received by the President. Then he was received by the Prime Minster and finally the central bank. They even allowed him to look at the books and asked him for advice. Lots of people want Geroge Soros’ advice. Most recently, South African President Nelson Mandela.

Interview (Soros) cont’d

Actually President Mandela asked me how could South Africa protect itself “against speculators like you” and I told him. I wrote him a memo trying to give him the best advice I could; how to reduce the exposure of South Africa to speculative attack.

Host cont’d

That’s the old stop-me-before-I-kill-again approach, right? “This is what you can do to stop me.”

Soros cont’d

Whether I or somebody else does whatever is happening in the markets RED it really doesn’t make any differenceRED to the outcome. I don’t feel guilty because I’m engaged in an amoral activity which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt.

Host cont’d

Part of the reason he is so rich is that the Soros’ hedge funds operate offshore in the Netherlands Antilles to avoid scrutiny by the SEC. So even while Soros tells congress and the treasury that hedge funds must be regulated to stop the global crisis he’s avoiding the rules.

Interview cont’d

Why is it that Americans can’t invest in the Quantum Fund (that’s an offshore fund)? Why is that?

Soros cont’d

Because the fund is not registered with the SEC. So, we are not –

Host cont’d

… licensed to do business in the United States?

Soros cont’d

That’s right.

Host cont’d

Because?

Soros cont’d

Because we are not registered with the SEC. We find it more convenient to operate without it.

Host cont’d

So in some way it’s to escape regulation?

Soros cont’d

That’s right.

Host cont’d

But you’ve been sitting here talking about the need for regulation.

Soros cont’d

Yes. And whatever regulations are imposed we will – we already conform to everything.

Host cont’d

If the beneficiaries of Soros’ billions do not understand the intricacies of SEC rules and offshore hedge funds they do understand what he’s done for them. The President of Haiti is reading his new book, ‘The Crisis of Global Capitalism’, and so it President Clinton. Will all the attention spoil George Soros?

Grant cont’d

George Soros, in a way, is Donald Trump without the humility.

Interview cont’d

One of your money managers told us that ‘George really does think he’s God.’

Soros cont’d

If you think you’re God and you go into financial markets you are bound to come out broke. So the fact that I’m not broke shows that I don’t believe I’m God.