George Soros (Schwartz) is a famous American trader, investor, financier and philanthropist. Founder of the network of charitable organizations "Soros Foundation". As of 2016, Soros' fortune was $24.9 billion. Many consider him a speculator and a man who ruined the Bank of England.
George Soros is an ambiguous person: for some, he is a financial guru, founder of charitable foundations in 25 countries, an influential investor and a loving father of five children, while for others he is “great and terrible.” He is called a master of market speculation, a stock speculator who "broke down" an English bank. He is a supporter of the legalization of marijuana, etc.
Principles of George Soros
George Soros was born in 1930 in Budapest, in a Jewish family with an average income. His father, Tivadar Schwartz, was a lawyer and one of the main figures in the Jewish community. In 1936, for security reasons, he forged documents: he changed his surname to Hungarian - Shorosh. This is how Gyorgy Shorosh, the future George Soros, appeared.
They say, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." These words can be attributed to George Soros. Life gave him good lessons, thanks to which he became the way we see him now. One of them: “The lesson that I learned during the war is that sometimes you can even lose your own life if you don’t take risks.”
Thanks to the difficulties that befell the family, he formed the main life principles:
- “My principle is to strive first to survive, and only then to earn.”
- “I did not accept the rules proposed by others. If I did that, I wouldn't be alive."
In London
In 1947, the family moved to. Soros would later write: "I was lucky that my father was one of those who did not act as people usually do."
In the UK, Soros goes to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science, whose motto is "Know the reason for things." Many influential people in society graduated from this school, including John F. Kennedy.
At the London School, John Soros met the Austrian lecturer Karl Popper, a sociologist and philosopher whose idea of an open society influenced Soros's entire life. The essence of this idea is that people in an open society, when making decisions, should rely on their own intelligence and critical thinking, and not on the system of prohibitions that is characteristic of a closed society. That is, a person should think with his own head, and not be a cog in society.
Three years later, Soros successfully graduated from high school. It would seem that after graduating from such a prestigious educational institution, a direct road to big business is open to him. But he works first at a haberdashery factory as an assistant manager, then as a traveling salesman travels to English seaside resorts. In 1953, he got a job in the arbitration department of London companies, but he quickly got bored with routine work.
Once he had to earn extra money as a porter at the station, and as a waiter, and even as an apple picker, so it cannot be said that he shied away from work. But it would be strange to think that a person with high intelligence, knowledge, prestigious education and ambitions will be satisfied with the position of a traveling salesman. He is attracted to the financial sector, but when he tries to get a job in a bank, he is rejected everywhere. And one of the main reasons is his nationality.
Start of financial activity
A friend of Soros's father, who owns a small brokerage firm, invites him to his place, and in 1956 George Soros crosses the Atlantic Ocean and ends up in New York. Since that time, his financial activity begins. In a brokerage house, he learns the secrets of buying and selling securities. On the so-called external arbitrage - buying shares in one country and selling them in another - he manages to make good money. In addition, George is enterprising and comes up with his own way of trading securities, which he calls internal arbitrage: he sells the combined securities separately before they can be officially separated from each other.
And here he follows another of his life principles: "I do not play within this set of rules, I seek to change the rules of the game."
However, changes in legislation, in particular the fees introduced by the government, made this business unprofitable, and Soros left for three years, from 1963 to 1966, to write a dissertation and a philosophical treatise, The Heavy Burden of Consciousness. Over time, he realizes that business attracts him more than philosophy.
Creation of the Quantum Fund
Since 1966, the investment activity of George Soros begins. The capital of the company he founded is initially $100,000. For three years of work, he makes a significant profit and becomes a co-owner and head of the Double Eagle fund, which later grew into (received such a name in honor of the creator of quantum mechanics).
Quantum is a hedge fund, that is, a non-public private investment fund managed by a professional investment manager. Due to the lack of a clear regulatory framework, hedge funds are free to use various financial instruments and choose strategies when investing money in any markets. The result of the work of such funds can be not only profits, but also losses - so Quantum had to go through not only ups, but also downs.
Nevertheless, Quantum provided its investors with more than 30% of annual returns on shares, and in total they received $ 32 billion - this is the largest profit in the history of hedge funds. By 1990, Quantum's capital was already $10 billion.
"White Wednesday"
However, Soros became famous in the world not at all for this, but because in one day he earned $ 1 billion by playing on the fall of the British pound against the German mark. The day of September 16, 1992, which became "black Wednesday" for British banks, became for Soros, in his words, "white Wednesday". He himself gained a reputation as the man who broke the Bank of England.
He did this using the Global Macro strategy: the fund manager, based on an assessment of the macroeconomic position occupied by different regions and countries of these regions, makes a conclusion about which asset classes will go down and which ones will go up.
For several years, Soros bought the British currency in small batches. In addition, he turned with his idea for financial support to the largest American investment banks. Having the appropriate capital, Soros began to play for the fall of the British pound - to short. The sale of 5 billion British pounds at once allowed the pound to depreciate to a critical minimum, and the repurchase of the pounds that had fallen in price made it possible to make a profit of 1 billion.
failures
Of course, playing on the stock exchange is associated with risks and failures. They did not bypass Soros either. He called the purchase in 1997 of a controlling stake in the Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest, in which he lost almost $ 2 billion, as his worst investment and the main mistake of his life: due to the crisis that happened in 1998, the share price fell by more than half , and he was able to sell them only after numerous attempts in 2004 for $625 million.
In the future, he had other failures, albeit on a smaller scale, so he decided to finance scientific and cultural projects.
Charity
George Soros invests a lot of money in charity. He founded several charitable foundations with branches in other countries: in Africa, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and the United States of America. These are the Open Society Institute, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the Soros Foundation, which support the creative intelligentsia, help scientists and the opposition in countries where there is no democratic regime. In total, over the past 30 years, Soros has spent over $5 billion on charity. It is said that he spends about $300 million a year on non-profit projects. And in 2010, he donated $332 million to his open society charitable foundation, earning him the title of America's Most Generous Billionaire.
Soros Profit Strategy
It is known that Soros managed to earn a significant profit using the so-called "bearish" tactics (playing for a fall).
He adhered to the theory of reflexivity of stock markets, according to which decisions on the purchase and sale of securities are made on the basis of prices expected in the future. And expectation is a psychological category. Since the stock exchange is also people (investors, traders, etc.), they can be influenced by information through financial and analytical publications, the media, and currency speculators. "Spells can influence people's decisions, which shape the course of events," he says.
It is believed that George Soros can owe his success in making a profit both to his own gift of financial foresight and to the skillful use of insider information that was provided to him by people who have weight in the economic and political spheres of the world's leading countries.
For example, in 2002, a Paris court found him guilty of using confidential information to generate profits, through which he earned $ 2 million from the shares of a large French bank, and sentenced him to a corresponding fine.
Soros shares his thoughts and ideas in articles and books. Entrepreneurs and financiers will be interested in such as "Alchemy of Finance", "Soros on Soros. Ahead of Change”, “A New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The 2008 Credit Crisis and Its Significance”. In addition, George Soros is an honorary doctorate from the New York New School for Social Research, Oxford and Yale.
On his initiative, in 1990, the Central European University was opened in Prague, Budapest and Warsaw.
Currently, George Soros lives in the penthouse of one of the skyscrapers in New York. He is undemanding in everyday life and at the same time says: "I have always felt like an exceptional person."
Four hundred seventy-three million to one. These were the chances of George Soros...
(Paul Tudor Jones II, from the preface to the book by J. Soros "The Alchemy of Finance")
The lesson I learned during the war is that sometimes you can even lose your own life if you don't take risks.
I did not accept the rules suggested by others. If I did this, I would no longer be alive.
The figure of George Soros among the financiers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has acquired truly cosmic proportions with demonic overtones. A man who moves world markets, an interview with which immediately gets on the front pages of leading publications. His level of communication is presidents and prime ministers. His statements became quotes, books - bestsellers. With the personality of Soros, as a financial speculator, perhaps only the Wall Street legend of the 1920s is commensurate. With one major difference. The popularity of the "wunderkind" Livermore did not go beyond stockbrokers and investors. Soros gained additional wide recognition as a philanthropist, philosopher and public figure.
Soros has a large number of followers and fans who hang on his every word, copy his lifestyle and work methods. For them, he is a Guru, and not only in the economy. There is another, no less numerous "group of comrades", for whom Soros is a swindler, a swindler, an "agent of world capitalism", well, just a bad person. The name Soros has become a household name. Economists call "Soros" large speculators who "set off currency crises for profit and pleasure" (Paul Krugman, 1996).
The purpose of this material is a presentation of individual facts from the biography of the great investor. An attempt to separate fiction from reality. Legend from reality. Although the legend is an indispensable attribute of people like George Soros, the man who "revealed".
Biography of George Soros. First half of the way. 1930-1970
Childhood and adolescence 1930-1947
Very, very much is laid in everyone in childhood. At all times, the role of parents, their example is difficult to overestimate ... The future player and was no exception.
George Soros was born on August 12, 1930 to a Jewish family in Budapest. The name given to him at birth is Gyorgy, the surname is Schwartz. The father of the future financier is Tivadar Schwarz, a lawyer, and his mother is Erzebet Szucz, a representative of a wealthy family.
G. Soros, first of all, owes his father to his future fate, views and, simply, the fact that he was able to survive. Tivadar Schwartz was an extraordinary person. Specialist in the artificial language of Esperanto, Esperanto writer, founder and editor of a literary magazine. Plays a prominent role in the Jewish community of the Hungarian capital in the 1920s and 30s.
T. Schwartz lived an extraordinary life. Having volunteered for the First World War (in order not to miss such a chance - an interesting reason, right?), He falls into Russian captivity, as a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army. Then follows the Siberian camp and escape with a long transition to Hungary. More than risky. The chances of a successful outcome were not at all great, but Tivadar won and survived ...
By personal example, Schwartz Sr. was able to instill in Schwartz Jr., the future Soros, love and the ability to take risks. Often the risky move is the only possible one. The only option that allows you to save life, sometimes in the literal sense. The lessons of the father were perfectly learned by the son and helped him in the future. Exchange game, financial transactions are inseparable from a reasonable and calculated risk. But any, the most complex and ingenious calculation will not save a trader or investor from the need to make a choice and take risks. Again and again.
The special talent of Tivadar Schwartz to foresee the impending danger and be able to avoid it was revealed from the mid-1930s. The dictatorship of the Hungarian ruler Miklos Horthy, who made an alliance with Hitler, did not open up very bright prospects for local Jews. Not everyone understood this, but Schwartz Sr. calculated the situation very well.
In 1936, the family changed the Jewish-sounding surname Schwartz to the Hungarian Shorosh (Soros). Tivadar was very proud of his choice. In Hungarian, Shoros/Soros is "follower", and in his favorite Esperanto, the verb is "soar".
In 1944 it became quite dangerous. German troops occupied Hungary. The new administration graciously invited the Jews to register. Now everyone knows what this inevitably led to. Then it was not obvious. But not for a person who has taken a new surname. This is hard to fool. How difficult it would be to get his son on the stock exchange in thirty or forty years. Shorosh senior makes fake documents for his relatives. Moreover, they begin to live separately from each other, hoping to get lost among ordinary Christian Hungarians. The rescue operation is going well. The Soros escaped the fate of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews who became victims of the Holocaust. George gets a chance: "I was lucky that my father was one of those who did not act, as people usually do."
Studying in London and work not in the specialty 1947-1953
In 1947, George Soros left Hungary, already occupied by Soviet troops, for London on fake documents. There is a legend that he made a choice between the British capital, where the Air Force is located, the wave of which the whole family “caught” during the war years, and Moscow. Intuition did not fail the future "financial tycoon" even then. Once again, Soros Jr. heeded his father's advice.
In the same year (according to other sources - in 1949) he entered the London School of Economics and Political Science, which he graduated after 3 years. The educational institution is world-famous for its teachers (including many Nobel laureates) and graduates. Among the latter are John F. Kennedy and, oddly enough, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. It's funny that the English abbreviation of the London School of Economics LSE, coincides with the short name of the London Stock Exchange, to which Soros will soon be most directly related.
At the School, Soros listened to lectures and became a follower of the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who had a significant impact on the socio-political views of the future investor.
Graduation from the School did not open the doors of banks, investment or trust companies to its young graduate. Not at all. The future "master of the markets" had to take a full spoonful of poor life.
Here is an incomplete list of places and jobs that J. Soros occupied and performed immediately after his studies:
- haberdashery factory employee;
- a traveling salesman in the seaside towns of southern England;
- waiter;
- fruit picker;
- station porter.
According to the investor, at that time he lived on a budget of four pounds a week and even envied the cat that ate herring in front of his eyes. Another batch of legends?
But the hope for a better life did not leave young George. He persistently looked for a place as a financier and believed in his star: “I have always felt like an exceptional person”.
Some sources put forward the version that the rapid and successful employment of the young Soros was hampered by his nationality and lack of patronage. It is difficult to disagree with the latter, but the reason for refusals on a national basis (for such a profession!) Is quite controversial.
Start of financial career 1953-1970
Finally, it's done! In 1953, George was accepted into the arbitration department of Singer and Friedlander. Career of the financier started. The department's office is next to the London Stock Exchange building.
And in 1956, 26-year-old Soros, with very little money, went to conquer America. The first stage of the implementation of the next American dream. Again, as before, his father helped him. Subsequently, George Soros always emphasized what a colossal influence Schwartz/Soros Sr. had on him. And what help!
George is hired by a certain Mayer, his father's London comrade. Mayer owned a small brokerage house on Wall Street. Soros begins international arbitrage trading with a derivative (combined) financial instrument created by him personally. It combined shares, warrants (derivatives, contracts for the purchase of shares) and. Packages of securities were purchased in one country and sold in another. Already the first job in New York allowed Soros to conduct international financial transactions.
In 1959, George moved to the position of analyst at Wetheim & Co. However, in 1963, international arbitration became an unprofitable business and Soros stopped doing it. The reason is the introduction by President John F. Kennedy of a number of additional taxes and fees. Here is such a bandwagon from one graduate of the London School of Economics to another.
By 1967 George was head of the research division at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. The brokerage firm was engaged in trading on European stock markets.
In the United States, Soros begins to conduct the first, still "home" joint investment operations. He invested his own, as well as the funds of friends and acquaintances entrusted to him, in various financial instruments. The novice investor's goal was to earn half a million dollars, which would allow him to leave his job as a financier and devote himself entirely to philosophy. Now that looks like a real myth.
Finally, in the same 1967, using his weight and influence in Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, George persuades the company's management to establish the First Eagle investment fund. In 1969, Soros was assigned to run Double Eagle, a newly created hedge fund.
Further, according to one version, J. Soros left the leadership of the "Eagles" as a result of the actions of regulatory authorities and created in 1970, together with Jim Rogers (Jim Rogers), the world-famous Quantum-. According to other sources, the Quantum fund grew out of Double Eagle. Well, actually, these nuances do not really matter.
The Foundation owes its name to the section of modern physics - quantum mechanics, which was created by Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg and a number of other outstanding scientists of the 20th century.
On this one can draw the line of the first half of the life of George Soros. For forty long years he went to his heights, which he achieved together with the Quantum Foundation. Behind were the childhood of a Jewish boy in war-torn Europe, the half-starved years in England, the first experience of working on Wall Street. Ahead is the battle with the pound and Asian currencies, the dizzying success of the Quantum Fund, fame and recognition.
Below are the most significant and famous financial events associated with the name of Soros.
Soros against the pound. "Black and White Wednesday" September 16, 1992
Of course, in the first place is the collapse of the British pound in September 1992. This is the most famous and successful operation of Soros and his foundation. Currency market legend.
Brief background of the issue
In March 1979, the Single European System (EMS) was created. Initially, it consisted of 8 states. The UK joined in 1990. The single European monetary unit ECU was introduced. On January 1, 1999, it was replaced by the euro.
If you do not go into economic details, the main thing for this story is the requirements for the mutual exchange rates of the countries participating in the European system. Fluctuations relative to the fixed (central) value on the date of entry of the country into the EMU should not exceed 2.25% in both directions (with the exception of the Italian lira). Sort of like a European. A member state of the EMU must strictly keep its currency (from falling, first of all) within the given limits.
What is the task of a currency speculator in this situation? Everything is quite simple. You need to find the currency that is overvalued relative to another. And massive sales to push the rate of a weak currency down. To force the Central Bank, the country attacked by speculators, to spend gold and foreign exchange reserves on the obviously thankless task of keeping the national currency rate within the corridor. This will be especially difficult to do if the economy is weakened and reserves are limited. An example is the situation in 2014-2015 with the Ukrainian hryvnia and the Russian ruble, which is very clear.
The main thing is to decide on the victim. It is very important not to make a mistake and bet on the right “horse”. Great Britain became such a European "weakling" in 1992 with its overvalued pound and weakened economy. Market participants recognized the German mark and the US dollar as strong currencies. The Germans worked on adapting the former GDR. The future of the economy of the united Germany looked more interesting than the British one. did not reduce the key discount rate and did not lower the attractiveness of the brand.
At the end of August 1992, the disposition was as follows. The pound/mark dropped from 2.95 (when Britain joined the EMU) over the spring and summer, first to 2.85 and then to 2.79. The lower border of the 2.778 corridor was dangerously close. Speculators "smell the smell of blood."
George Soros spoke about technical analysis (in the same Alchemy) especially dismissively: “Existing theories of price behavior in the stock market are surprisingly untenable. For the practitioner, their value is so insignificant that I am not even fully familiar with them. The fact that I managed to get by without them speaks for itself.”.
Alchemists work differently...
However, the Chief Alchemist can also find quite specific recommendations for traders.
Enter the game on small volumes. If your calculations are confirmed, increase your position.
Don't try to learn everything about the market. "stupid".
The investor must decide on the level of risk that he can accept by opening a position. Especially at the beginning.
Well, actually, there is nothing new here. All this is described in the first half of the last century. For example, Jesse Lauriston Livermore, who is rumored to have crashed on Wall Street in October 1929.
Some more Soros quotes useful for speculators.
“Obviously, life itself can be seen as a series of speculations. And to be successful in these speculations, you must balance at least six variables: the initial bet, the size of the bet, the commission, the volatility of the game itself, the exit point and its duration.
“I highly recommend using stops to protect funds from unwanted price movements. However, determining the levels of protective suspension at which to place stops is a real art.
With all his love for the theory of reflexivity and following the main principles in investment strategies, George Soros did not shy away from insider trading. At least one such fact is considered legally proven.
A Paris court in 2002 convicted Soros of using confidential information in trade. It was about operations with shares of Societe Generale bank. Soros' income from these securities amounted to $2 million. The fine to be paid by the court decision is 2.2 million euros. Later, it was reduced to 900 thousand euros. But Soros did not want to pay even this amount, or maybe he was saving his reputation, and his decision was to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. However, this court, by four votes to three, upheld the verdict.
If you carefully analyze others, incl. and the operations described here, it seems quite likely that the success of the great investor lies in the inside. He is not the first and certainly not the last. And not everything can be tracked and proven ...
Conclusion. So who is George Soros?
It was an incredibly long and difficult path from György Schwartz, a teenager from a Jewish family, in Nazi-occupied Budapest, to George Soros, one of the largest and most successful financiers of the late twentieth century.
Soros' personal fortune as of September 2012 was estimated at $19 billion.
His figure has outgrown the framework of the "investor shop". He is a writer, philosopher, public figure, fighter against totalitarianism and philanthropist. According to Business Week, his charitable donations reach $5 billion.
But in Soros's charity, many see nothing more than investments, which, ultimately, are aimed at personal enrichment and satisfaction of their own ambitions. In 1997, the Soros Foundation, which is engaged in the humanitarian direction in Belarus, was expelled from the country.
Soros is a black and white legend who is worshiped and hated.
Soros is a person who does not accept other people's rules. He installs them himself.
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George Soros (Soros) real name (Gyorgy Shorosh) was born in Budapest on August 12, 1930 in a Jewish family of average income. George's father was a lawyer and publisher (tried to publish a magazine in Esperanto). In 1914, he volunteered for the front, was captured by the Russians and was exiled to Siberia, from where he fled back to his native Budapest. During the time of repression, thanks to false documents made by his father, the Soros family escaped persecution by the Nazis and in 1947 safely emigrated to the UK. At this time, Soros was already 17 years old. Here Soros entered London School of Economics and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who later became his mentor.
George's life goal was Karl Popper's idea of creating a so-called open society on earth. In this regard, he organized numerous charitable organizations around the world.
Career
In England, George Soros found work in a haberdashery factory. The position was called assistant manager, but in fact he worked as a salesman. Then George turned into a traveling salesman, driving around in a cheap Ford and selling goods to various merchants in the seaside resorts of Wales. Simultaneously with the work of a traveling salesman, Soros tried to get a job in all the merchant banks in London. But everywhere he was refused due to his nationality and the lack of a protégé. Only in 1953 did he get a job at Singer & Friedländer from a Hungarian compatriot. Work and at the same time an internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange. Its leader traded shares of gold mining companies. But boring work did not inspire George Soros, and three years later he found a way to move to America.
IN THE USA in 1956 he arrived at the invitation of the father of his London friend, a certain Mayer, who had his own small brokerage firm on Wall Street. A career in the United States began with international arbitration, that is, buying securities in one country and selling them in another. After the Suet crisis, this type of business did not go as well as Soros wanted and he created a new method of trading, calling it internal arbitrage (selling separately combined securities of stocks, bonds and warrants before they could be officially separated from each other). Prior to Kennedy's introduction of a surcharge on foreign investment, this type of activity brought in a good income. After that, Soros' business was destroyed overnight.
Soros returned to philosophy. From 1963 to 1966, he tries to rewrite the dissertation, on which he began working after business school and returned to writing his treatise "The Heavy Burden of Consciousness", but the demanding George Soros was not satisfied with his brainchild, as he believed that he was simply conveying the thoughts of his great teacher . At this, the career of the philosopher was terminated and in 1966 he returned to business.
From the company's capital of 100 thousand dollars, Soros created investment fund with a capital of 4 million dollars. Having received significant profits in three years of work, in 1969 Soros became the head and co-owner of a fund called Double Eagle and later developed into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions with securities that brought him millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was $10 billion. To date, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars. A significant day on September 15, 1992, when, thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros associated with a sharp fall in the British pound, his fortune increased by another 1 billion dollars. After that day, Soros became known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England."
In 1997, George Soros launched a successful attack against the national currencies of a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region - Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, which ended in a deep economic crisis in these countries, thrown back in their development by 10-15 years ago. China became its next target, but local experts managed to prevent the attack.
Losses
But since 1997, Soros has had a “black streak”. Almost all investments brought huge losses. In 1997, together with Potanin, he created Mustcom offshore, which paid $1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price fell by more than half. Soros angrily called this purchase "the worst investment of money in my life." After much trying, in 2004 he sold shares in Svyazinvest for $625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who is also a shareholder in TNK-BP. At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake for $1.3 billion to Comstar-UTS, part of AFK Sistema.
In 2005, Soros sold to the Italian banking group Intesa his stake in KMB Bank (Small Business Lending Bank), which has more than 50 branches in all major Russian cities and serves more than 35,000 clients. In 1999, the Soros investment fund (not to be confused with a charitable one) acquired a 47 percent stake in the bank, which was then called the Russian Project Finance Bank. At that time, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) held a controlling stake. At the time of the current deal, the EBRD and Soros each had about 37 percent of the bank's shares, with another 26 percent in the hands of German and Dutch investors.
All shareholders, except for the EBRD, have completely sold their shares in KMB. The total amount of the deal is estimated at $90 million. This transaction is notable because, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the stake in this bank was Soros' last financial asset in Russia. Deciding to retire, he came to grips with the funding programs for science and the arts.
Strategy: how George Soros got rich
George Soros' fortune is estimated at $7.2 billion. According to Business Week magazine, he has donated more than $5 billion to charitable causes throughout his life, with one billion of that five coming from Russia. All of Soros' main speculations in the world financial markets were carried out through his secret offshore company Quantum Fund NV, registered on the Caribbean island of Curacao, owned by the Netherlands. It is the largest fund within the Soros-controlled Quantum Group of Funds.
George Soros made his fortune playing games on downgrade ("bearish" tactics), during which he used his "reflexivity theory of stock markets". According to this theory, decisions about buying and selling securities are made on the basis of price expectations in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, they can be the object of information impact. An attack on the currency of any country consists of successive information strikes through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators, shaking the financial market.
There are two main points of view regarding the financial success of Soros. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his successes to the gift of financial foresight. Another says that in making important decisions, George Soros uses insider information provided by high-ranking officials from the political, financial and intelligence circles of the world's largest countries [source?]. Moreover, it is assumed that Soros is a hired manager, carrying out financial projects for a group of powerful international financiers who prefer to keep a low profile and are based mainly in the UK, Switzerland and the USA.
The core of this group is believed to be the famous Rothschild family, but in addition to the Rothschilds, the organization represented by Soros includes the infamous American billionaire Mark Rich, Shaul Eisenberg, Rafi Eitan and others.
In 2002, a Parisian court even found George Soros guilty of obtaining confidential information for profit and sentenced him to a fine of 2.2 million euros. According to the court, thanks to this information, the millionaire earned about $ 2 million on the shares of the French bank Societe Generale.
Charity
George Soros is known not only as a financier, but also as philanthropist and social thinker, author of a number of books and articles, for which the fundamental value and central idea is the formation of an open society in the post-communist world. In 1990, on the initiative of Soros, the Central European University was founded in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. And he is also an honorary doctor of the New School for Social Research (New York), Oxford and Yale Universities. In addition to numerous articles George Soros wrote books"Alchemy of Finance" (1987), "Discovering the Soviet System" (1990), "Supporting Democracy" (1991).
The Open Society Fund was the start of Soros' philanthropic career. Now he has established charitable foundations in more than 25 countries. Back in 1988, Soros organized the Cultural Initiative Foundation in the USSR to support science, culture, and education. But the "Cultural Initiative" fund was closed, as the money was not used for its intended purpose, but was used for personal purposes by certain individuals. In 1995, the decision was made to start over in Russia, and a new Open Society Foundation was organized. George Soros is the first in Russia since 1996. finances the project "University Internet Centers". The goal of the project was to open and maintain for five years the functioning of centers for open access to the global information computer network Internet at 32 Russian universities. This project was financed together with the government of the Russian Federation. Soros' contribution was $100 million, and the Russian government's contribution was $30 million. It is believed that this is the only obligation that the government has fulfilled in full and on time. George Soros is called nothing less than a living legend of the financial market or a financial genius. Back in 1994, investments in a network of charitable foundations and other institutions reached $300 million, in 1995 and 1996 - $350 million each.
George Soros(Hungarian Soros György - György Shorosh, English George Soros, real name - Schwartz) - American trader, financier, philanthropist, investor, philosopher. A supporter of the theory of an open society and an opponent of "market fundamentalism". The successor of the ideas of Karl Popper. Congenital Esperanto. Creator of a network of charitable organizations known as the Soros Foundation. Member of the Executive Committee of the International Crisis Group. For 2016, his fortune is estimated at 24.9 billion US dollars.
Place of Birth. Education. Born August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary. Born into a Jewish family of average income. His father Tivadar Schwartz is a lawyer, an outstanding figure in the city's Jewish community, an Esperanto specialist and an Esperanto writer. In 1936, the family changed their surname to the Hungarian version of Shorosh (Soros).
In 1947, Soros moved to England, where he entered the London School of Economics and Political Science and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who had a great influence on him, whose ideological follower he became. At the same time, he worked as an assistant manager at a haberdashery factory.
Career. In 1953-1956 - work in the company Singer and Friedlander (Singer & Friedlander) in London.
In 1956 - moving to New York, USA.
From 1956-1963 he was a broker and financial analyst at Wetheim & Co. Worked in international arbitration. He founded a new trading method - internal arbitrage.
In 1963-1966 - work on a philosophical dissertation "The Heavy Burden of Consciousness".
In 1967, with the capital of the Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder company of $ 100 thousand, he created an investment fund with a capital of $ 4 million.
In 1969 - the head and co-owner of the Double Eagle Foundation (Double Eagle).
In 1970 - created an investment company, which later became the famous Quantum (Quantum Group).
In 1979, he created the first charitable foundation "Open Society" in the USA.
In 1984, he opened a charitable foundation in Hungary.
In 1988, he organized a fund in the USSR "Cultural Initiative in Support of Science, Culture and Education". However, the fund was soon closed because the money was not used for its intended purpose.
In 1990 he founded the Central European University in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.
September 16, 1992 - made a billion dollars on the fall of the pound sterling, which is why he received the nickname "the man who ruined the Bank of England."
In 1995, the capital of the Quantum group of funds was estimated at more than $ 10 billion, and Soros's personal income was about a third of this amount.
In 1997, during the economic crisis in a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused George Soros of attacking the currencies of Asian countries. Soros dismissed the accusations and shifted the responsibility to the state financial institutions of Asian countries, in which loans grew too quickly.
In 2000, the fall of the NASDAQ index caused damage to Soros in the amount of almost $ 3 billion. After that, Quantum was reorganized and a transition to a lower risk strategy was proclaimed.
In 2002, a Parisian court found Soros guilty of making a profit due to knowledge of confidential information (insider). According to the court, thanks to this information, the millionaire earned about $ 2 million on the shares of the French bank Société Générale. Sentenced to a fine of 2.2 million euros.
In 2006 - ranked 27th in the list of the richest people in the United States. His income according to Forbes magazine is estimated at $ 8.7 billion.
He is an honorary doctor of the New School for Social Research (New York), Oxford and Yale Universities.
Financier. In 1956 he moved to the USA, created an international investment fund, which began to bring him profit. Today he heads the foundation that bears his name.
Philanthropist. The first foundation - the Open Society Foundation - Soros founded in New York in 1979, the first East European Foundation - in Hungary in 1984. Today he funds a network of foundations operating in 31 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as in South Africa, Haiti and the United States. The activities of the foundations are aimed at developing and supporting the infrastructure of an open society. In Ukraine, the Soros International Renaissance Foundation was created.
Today, the Soros foundation network covers more than 100 countries in Eastern Europe, the former USSR, Africa, Latin America and the USA. These funds are aimed at creating and supporting the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. In 1992 he founded the Central University with a campus in Budapest. Every year, the Soros Foundations network spends approximately $400 million to support projects in education, healthcare, civil society development, and others.
Soros and Ukraine. On June 17, 2014, the President of Ukraine met with Soros, who, through his Renaissance Foundation, initiated the creation of a strategic group of advisers to assist the Ukrainian authorities in implementing reforms and informed the head of state about the preparation of a strategic reform plan for Ukraine.
Strongly supports EU and US support for Ukraine.
In 2015, Soros stayed in Ukraine for six days and, in a conversation with reporters, said that he had not been in any country in which his foundation operates for so long. In addition, he said that he intended to encourage Ukrainian migrants to do business.
On May 14, 1995, he was elected a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine with a degree in economics and finance.
On November 12, 2015, he was awarded the Order of Freedom - for significant personal merits in strengthening the international authority of the Ukrainian state, a significant contribution to the implementation of socio-economic reforms, and many years of fruitful charitable work.
Books. Author of numerous articles and books: The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror (PublicAffairs, July 2006), The American Advantage Bible, George Soros on Globalization (2002). ), "The Alchemy of Finance" (1987), "Discovering the Soviet System" (1990), "Ensuring Democracy" (1991), "Soros on Soros": A Vision of Development Processes (1995), "Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society in Peril "(1998), "Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism" (2000). In 2011, a collection of his lectures "Lectures at the Central European University" (K .: Spirit and Letter, 2011) was published in Ukrainian. His articles and essays on politics, society and economics are published regularly in the world's leading newspapers and magazines.
Family. Divorced twice. Soros has three children from his first marriage and two from his second: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan (by his first wife Analyna Vitchak), Alexander and Gregory (by his second wife Susan Weber Soros).
George Soros- a brilliant financier, philosopher, politician, philanthropist and at the same time a speculator with radical views, adventurous inclinations and innovative thinking. No one can predict in advance his next step in work and life. He does not walk the beaten path, but he himself paves new paths, as well as new doctrines.
His activities on a global scale are evaluated ambiguously.
There was even a term soros”, implying speculators who artificially create currency crises for the sake of profit. On the other hand, Soros created a network of charitable organizations around the world under the general name "". He is a member of the executive committee of the non-profit international organization International Crisis Group, the essence of which is to prevent political conflicts.
Education
Career:
- Brokerage Firm F. M. Mayer, Arbitrage Trader - 1956–1959
- Investment company Wertheim & Company, analyst - 1959-1963
- Arnhold Investment Company and S. Blaikroeder, Vice President - 1963-1973
- Quantum Group Foundation, Sole Proprietor - 1973-2000
- Soros Foundation, Chairman - 1996
Prizes:
- Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, New York - 1990
- University of Bologna - 1995
The address:
- Soros Foundation Office, 888 Seventh Avenue, 33rd Floor, Suite 3300, New York, NY 10016-0001; https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/ .
Biography of George Soros
George Soros (George Soros), formerly Gyorgy Shorosh, and even earlier - Gyord, that is, Georg Schwartz, was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest, into a Jewish family. His father, Tivadar Shorosh, a lawyer, went to the front as a volunteer in the First World War. Having been in Russian captivity and learning what Siberia is, in 1920 he fled home.
"To survive, you have to circumvent the law."
Elizabeth's mother advised her son to get an education, and his father taught survival methods. During the Nazi occupation, the family survived only thanks to forged documents that the father made. It was an important life lesson - to act according to one's own reasons, and not according to established laws.
In 1947, George moved to London, where he met the anti-communist philosopher Karl Popper and his treatise " open society". It is this theory of market dependencefrom psychology will permeate Soros' activities throughout his life. Future core fund " Quantum” will get its name, also based on the treatise.
“Alchemy does not work with chemical elements. But it works in the financial markets, because spells can influence the decisions of people who shape the course of events.”
Career in New York
In 1956, Soros moved to America, where he got a job in a small investment firm. F.M. Mayer. He invented and implemented new methods of work.
Since 1963, Soros has excelled as a financial analyst for a leading investment campaign. Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder who has worked with overseas clients. After some time, he reached the post of vice president. But then Kennedy's executive order came out on additional taxes on foreign investment, and work began to decline.
Soros came up with a new way of trading - internal arbitrage. He sold securities from a block of shares, bonds, powers of attorney separately before they were officially divided. However, this seemed to him not enough.
"I don't play within a given set of rules, I seek to change the rules of the game."
He quit investing and resumed writing his old dissertation - " Heavy burden of consciousness". After 3 years, he realized that he could still achieve much more in the field of investment. In 1966 he returned to business, and in 1967 the same company Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder entrusted him with the creation and management of several offshore funds.
The first two funds furst needle" and " Double ing in 1967 cost the company $250,000. But he managed to attract wealthy clients from Europe, South America and the Arab countries. Main officewas located in New York, and the funds were registered in the Antilles - offshore allowed to evade taxes. Under the leadership of Soros, incomes grew, although other investors suffered losses.
Creation of the first fund
“Nothing will make you concentrate like a possible danger. In order to reach the maximum level of clear thought, I need inspiration, and it is desirable that it be associated with risk.
In 1969, having made his own capital in 3 years of successful work, George Soros decided to create his own hedge fund. Such an enterprise is characterized by the fact that it uses aggressive tactics, is free from regulations, and can choose its own strategies and instruments for investment. This path leads either to super profits or to large losses.
George Soros becomes co-owner and leader Double Eagle Fund”, (Double ing), investing $ 4 million from personal capital. Later, the fund will turn into the famous "Quantum Group", which will bring Soros the main wealth and fame.
Over the years" Quantum has experienced its ups and downs, but contributors have earned a total of $32 million that is still unattainable today.
"I never play within one set of rules, but always try to change the rules of the game, adjusting them for myself"
Soros added his knowledge and experience to the ideas of Karl Popper and gave his own theory the name "reflexivity". Theorists of the time believed that professional investors assess the futuremarket movement based on traditional analytics. Soros turned everything upside down. He is sure that the psychology of the investor occupies the leading place in forecasting.
In 1973, George Soros, together with a former colleague and wealthy investor Jim Rogers, founded his own company. The junior partner, Roger, did fundamental analysis, and the senior, Soros, made deals. They were attracted by moments of risk, when the course maintained a delicate balance, but could swing in any direction at any moment.
Here is an example of Soros's methods: during the conflict between Israel and Egypt, Soviet weapons turned out to be more powerful than the Pentagon expected. Soros realized that the United States would now begin to actively build up the defense industry, and invested in military enterprises. As a result, by 1974, the fund's shares increased from 6.1 million to 18 million. In 1976, their value increased by 61.9%, and then - by 31.2%.
1980 showed that in the 10 years after the renaming of the Double Eagle fund to Quantum, the value of assets increased to 10.6%, which amounted to $ 381 million. Personal capital totaled $ 100 million. Soros made rich not only himself. His first investors, already rich people, thanks to the talent of Soros, became simply incredible rich.
Business or philanthropy?
By the end of 1980, his fund, renamed Quantum, had increased its initial capital by 100 times. And it was equal to 381 million dollars. But Soros fired Jim Rogers, and soon the figures began to creep down. A year later, he lost 23%, then the company's equity was halved. From the balance of $ 200 million, he returned the money to depositors, and he himself decided to take a break. He divorced his first wife Annelis, relations with children were not getting better. George Soros began visiting a psychoanalyst, looking for remedies for depression and decided to focus on philanthropy.
Unexpectedly, in the summer of 1981, the magazine "Institutional Investor" prints his portrait with the inscription: " World's Greatest Investment Manager". A laudatory article listed his successes and lifted him up. Among his clients were such magnates as Geldring, Pearson, Rothschild.
However, regular customers were spooked by previous losses. They took away their assets, believing that Soros was exhausted. Securities "Quantum" fell by 22.9%. For the first time in his life, he decided to fly to Europe to stop the flow of refugees, but it was all in vain. For the first time in 12 years of existence, the financial year ended with a minus.
By the end of 1982, a frustrated Soros still raised the value of assets by 56.9%, but decided to retire and began to look for a suitable successor. It was Jim Marquez, a 33-year-old child prodigy from Minnesota who manages the IDS Progressive Fund.
On January 1, 1983, Marquez began his career with Soros. The funds were divided into two parts. One was run by George Soros himself, and the other by 10 managers. The annual result was a real breakthrough. Assets grew by 24.9%, which corresponds to 75.4 million dollars, which amounted to no more, no less, 385,532,688 dollars.
- It was officially believed that Soros retired from work, but this is not entirely true. Most of the time he traveled around Europe and Japan, visiting each country for a month. And only in the summer he remained in New York on the island of Long Island.
Return to business
“My personality is that I don't have any particular investment style. Every time there is something new – new approaches, new methods, new ways of achieving the set goals.”
In 1985, the fund's shares soared again. It took just one year to increase asset growth by 122.2% from $448.9 million to $1,003 million. Quantum's profit was $548 million. Soros' share was 12%, that is, 66 million dollars. If you include in this amount 17.5 million taxes and10 million in client bonuses, then the annual earnings will be 93.5 million dollars. It is easy to calculate that from the year the fund was opened in 1969, each dollar invested then became worth $164. Inspired George Soros again embarked on the path of active action.
On September 22, 1985, US Treasury Secretary James Baker met with his counterparts from Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan to jointly depreciate the dollar. Soros bought millions of yen the day before the dollar collapsed and made $30 million overnight on the depreciation (from 239 to 222.5) as the yen rose 4.3% against the dollar and then 7% .
And although Soros did not know about the upcoming changes, many began to call him a living legend in the foreign exchange market. George Soros himself said that he, like everyone else, makes mistakes, but one major success overshadows everything. In total, in 1985, he earned $ 230 million. Whether it was a well-thought-out calculation, or a simple accident, Soros reacted to such a jump with the definition - “ sheer nonsense».
“Success requires leisure. You need time that belongs solely to you.”
Now the tycoon could afford to quietly manage his empire from the height of a penthouse in Manhattan, communicating with the world's largest bankers in 5 languages. Edition The Economist called him " the most intriguing investor in the world". A magazine Fortune described him as " the most successful investor of his time, endowed with the gift of foresight».
How Soros scammed the Bank of England
“It doesn't really matter if you're right or wrong. What matters is how much money you make when you're right and how much money you lose when you're wrong."
On October 5, 1990, 60-year-old Soros met with a 30-year-old fund manager on Wall Street. Despite the difference in age, they understood each other perfectly and became close friends. Two years later, Stanley Druckenmiller headed the fund " Quantum Fund» George Soros.
September 16, 1992, Wednesday, Soros played a big game. In recent years, he has gradually bought up the currency and government bonds of Britain. But then it happened that the pound began to fall and steadily declined during the week. Druckenmiller suggested to Soros " help» the British currency to fall even lower.
He added personal capital of about 5 billion pounds to the assets and put on a short position at once more than 10 billion. The rate immediately dropped to a minimum. Once again buying stocks and currencies at the lowest price, George Soros made £1 billion in one day.
Thus, he forced the Bank of England to carry out a massive injection of foreign exchange from government reserves and withdraw from the sphere of influence on European currencies. Soros has since earned the status of "The Man Who Toppled the Bank of England".
The following year, 1993, George Soros became the most successful trader in the investment market. World Finance magazine calculated that his earnings for 1993 were equal to the GDP of 42 countries. With this amount, it was possible to purchase 5,790 Rolls-Royce cars or pay for studies at the higher educational institutions of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia University in 3 years. He alone earned as much as the largest corporation "".
Attack on South Asia
In 1997, Soros carried out an attack similar to that of England to depreciate the currencies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. It caused a deep economic crisis in these countries and the return of the economy 15 years ago. The next attempt was an attack on China, but it was thwarted by Chinese experts. The leaders of many countries began to worry. If Soros willtrade their currency, an economic crisis may begin. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad effectively blamed Soros for destabilizing his country's economy during the Asian financial panic of 1997–1998. The tycoons of capitalism gained status as a person who could change the direction of the financial world market.
Massive failures
“By and large, I’m not afraid to lose everything. After all, I still have a head on my shoulders, and in this head there are still brains ... ".
In 1997, Soros, according to him, committed biggest mistake in my life, which was the first in a further series of failures. Together with the Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin, he created the offshore Mustcom and acquired a 25% stake in the Russian company Svyazinvest. 1998 fell on the crisis, prices fell almost three times. The purchase of Svyazinvest cost Soros $1.875 billion. And its sale in 2004 to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, was 625 million.
Second mistake was predicted in 1999 the decline in the assets of Internet enterprises. They, on the contrary, went uphill, and 700,000,000 dollars were lost for nothing. The next puncture was a bet on the growth of the euro. 300,000,000 were also lost. The Quantum Fund has lost almost one billion dollars.
Other funds by mid-1999 also showed a disgraceful result of minus $500 million. The total loss was one and a half billion dollars. Clients in a panic pulled out their money. It was an unprecedented failure in his entire career. But Soros wouldn't be Soros if he hadn't stopped the pullback. Moreover, he found a way to attract new investors by investing in Internet companies again, but this time to increase the price. The turnover of the Quantum Fund by 2000 had grown to $10,500,000,000.
- In 2000, at the age of seventy, George Soros decided to retire, although he retained leadership of the Soros Foundation Office. He put $2.8 billion into the fund, but he still had about $5 billion left. Soros promised to add the rest of the money before he turned 80.
Unexpectedly, the course, the Internet collapsed, and in April " Quantum” emptied by 3 billion. The total loss in the first quarter was $5 billion. This is 2.5 times higher than the losses in 1999. In 2004, Soros liquidates the fund. Since 2011, he decides from now on to earn only for himself and his family.
His two sons, Jonathan and Robert, commented that the liquidation is due to the emergence of new laws that significantly restrict the activities of hedge funds. The latest regulations make it necessary to make the business transparent, to disclose data about investors, which is basically impossible to do.
By 2010, Soros was considered the largest philanthropist, according to The Cronicle Of Philanthropy. Total Fund " Open Society Fund» received $332 million from Soros's personal capital to support democracy inCentral Europe, Eastern Europe and the territories of the former Soviet Union. By 2011, his fortune was estimated at 14.5 billion. According to Forbes, Soros was the 46th richest person in the world.
Retired George Soros
But by the time Soros retired, of course, he was not left empty-handed. He now lives in New York and has five children. Three - from the first wife of Anna-Lisa Witchak, with whom he lived for 23 years. His second marriage was in 1983 to Susan Weber, an art critic from New York who is 25 years his junior. Together they lived for 22 years. From this marriage two children were born.
Then, for more than five years, his girlfriend of life was a 28-year-old Brazilian TV star, Adriana Ferreira. In 2001, after parting, she demanded through the courts compensation of 50 million dollars. Soros called the lawsuit "completely unfounded." His lawyer expressed his opinion: "It is clear that this is nothing more than an attempt to blackmail money from a wealthy person."
And there is nothing surprising in the fact that in 2013, at the age of 83, he married for the third time. Brazilian Tamiko Bolton, 42 years old, previously sold dietary supplements online and later became the owner of an online yoga company.
At the moment, the family piggy bank holds 29 billion dollars in its assets.
The Secret of Soros' Wealth
"God gave me an extremely short memory, which allows me to deal not with the past, but with the future."
- Despite the fact that George Soros owns a large group of companies " Quantum Group of Funds", all major operations are carried out through a secret, the largest offshore fund" Quantum Fund NV”, which was listed on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
- He made his fortune playing in a bear market, that is, betting on a fall. Here he used his theory " Market Reflection". It says that the price forecast in the future is based not only on economic and political changes, but also on psychological factors. For example, in order to reduce the value of the currency of any country, you need to use the world's media, while simultaneously putting pressure on analysts and traders. This is how crises are caused that destroy the lives of many thousands of people.
- The decisive nature of the financier also played a role - the harsh childhood and the example of his father affected. Soros himself emphasizes that the ability to survive is the key to investment success. This means that the trader intuitively feels when to lower rates and when to raise. Sometimes it's a fraction of a second, a moment. Extremely developed intuition, multiplied by the inquisitiveness of the mind, gives an excellent result.
- Soros has excellent control over his actions. Having made a wrong move, he does not continue the game, but stops or withdraws assets altogether. After all, further play in the wrong direction incurs losses. This business requires extraordinary self-discipline. As a result, Soros was able to enter the international unofficial club, which includes 2,000 major personalities - the elite of international politics and economics.
- Many believe that Soros' virtues are only part of the truth. It is assumed that having secured friendship with the powerful of this world, he used classified official information for personal gain. In 2002, he was even fined 2.2 million euros for obtaining classified information for profit.
Political ambitions
George Soros was not a businessman in the usual sense of the word. The fact is that a lot of money made it possible to lobby for the necessary laws, to sponsor color revolutions. It was not without his participation that power changed in Eastern European countries, as well as in Georgia and Ukraine. No wonder Petro Poroshenko in November 2015 awarded him the Order of Freedom. Soros himself admitted tofollowing the theory of reflexivity of stock markets. Its essence is that the market does not move by itself. It is formed by people who influence political and economic circumstances. So, for example, in order to bring down the currency of a country, it is necessary through the media, analysts, currency traders to shake the currency or stock market in advance.
Charity
The only US citizen, he gives to charity 50% of his income, which is 300 million a year. The first charitable foundation called " open society» ( Open Society Fund) Soros discovered in 1979. Immediately he began to allocate money for the study of black students in South Africa.
In 1992 Soros founded the Central European University with the main building in Budapest. The Open Society Foundations operate in more than 100 countries. Their annual expenditure in 2011 reached $835 million.
In 1984 he created in Hungary the first Open Society Institute with a budget of $3 million. In 1990, the Central European University was opened with branches in Prague and Warsaw. Similar funds were created in the USA, Latin America, Asia and Africa. Their goal is to promote the ideas of the "Open Society", bring democracy and freedom, fight against dictators and tyranny. He has spent more than $8 billion on sponsorship since 1984. in 70 countries.
Many believe that Soros funds are aimed at corrupting the youth and undermining the state from within, and Soros also supports same-sex marriage, the legalization of marijuana, which is not welcome in many cultures and countries.
Romania, Croatia, Belarus banned its activities in their countries. Many states believe that Soros supports traitors and is a sponsor of various opposition societies. Soros is a representative of the shadow world government, which benefits from subordinating the economy of other countries. Therefore, his philanthropy is so ambiguous.
George Soros in Russia
Of the $5 billion donated to charity, $1 billion went to Russia. In 1987, for the first time, a Soviet-American foundation was opened under the name "Cultural Initiative". But he did not last long, as the funds were simply embezzled. In the same year, together with Potanin, an offshore was formed, which, due to the crisis, lasted only one year.
In 1988, the Cultural Initiative charitable foundation was founded to promote science and culture. Soon it was closed, as the money again went into the pocket of interested parties. In 1995, Soros returned to the Russian market with a fund« open society”, but the story with non-targeted money repeated itself. Then the joint program "University Internet Centers" was opened. The Russian government has invested 30 million dollars in it, and Soros - 100 million dollars.
For 5 years, from 1996 to 2001, 33 Internet centers were created for $100 million. A free magazine was published for young people coolant, which had a social and scientific direction. But, as you know, only cheese in a mousetrap is free. The ideology of history and cultural studies textbooks was aimed at strengthening the opposition. In 2003, Soros curtailed the activities of Russian foundations, and in 2004 he closed the grants. But the funds created with his help and the societies are still working. It:
- Petersburg Institute of Culture "PRO ARTE"
- Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences
- Fund for Book Publishing, Education and Information Technology Support
- Pushkin Library
In those days, the Funds came in handy. The country was at a crossroads, the economy was in complete collapse, and there is nothing to say about the humanitarian sectors. They set up the production of textbooks without the Soviet ideology, replenished the libraries with books. But there was one trick. All programs contained oppositional ideas. The ideological sabotage was designed for the youth and intelligentsia.
In November 2015, at the suggestion of the State Duma deputies, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation recognized the Open Society Foundation in Russia as undesirable, as it posed a threat to the constitutional order of Russia. 53 humanitarian textbooks were burned at the Vorkuta Mining College. 14 books written off for destruction at the Polytechnic College. Ukhta University was preparing to seize 413 books.
What is the danger of Soros funds
Readers of the online publication Human Events - powerful voices conservative rated billionaire George Soros as "the single most destructive left-wing demagogue in the country" and named 10 arguments:
- Issuing billions to societies with leftist views
Using Open Society as a pipeline, George Soros has donated over $7 billion to left-wing groups. Here are some of them: ACORN, Apollo Union, La Resa National Council, Tides Foundation, Huffington Post, Southern Poverty Law Center, Soujourners, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women.
- Influence on American elections
George Soros set a goal in 2004 to remove President George W. Bush, allocating $23.58 million to 527 anti-Bush groups. Soros helped Barack Obama launch a political career.
- Desire to reduce American sovereignty.
Soros would prefer America to become subject to international organizations. This would strengthen the power of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In his opinion, it is necessary to reduce American influence in the IMF.
- Media dictatorship.
Soros is the financial patron of the American media, where he pursues the line of his interests. But there is a progressive media group in the world that resists conservative pressure. Its founder, David Brock, openly declared war on Fox News, initiated "guerilla warfare and sabotage" against the cable news channel. He tried to destroy the business of the owner Rupert Murdoch, since by law the educational foundation has no right to engage in partisan political activities.
- MoveOn.org Society.
George Soros was a major investor in the MoveOn.org advocacy and political action campaign for millions of liberal candidates. On its website, the society compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.
- Center for American Progress.
The Center for American Progress provided the Obama administration with topics for negotiations and policy positions. Soros also funded the Obama-led White House and staffed its administration.
- environmental extremism.
George Soros funded Van Jones with his leftist environmental ideas to support societies: the Ella Baker Center, Green For All, the Center for American Progress, and the Apollo Alliance, which contributed $110 billion in environmental support. This was part of Obama's economic stimulus package. Soros also funded Climate Policy Initiative funds due to global warming, gave money to the Friends of the Earth society.
- American Association.
Soros gave almost 20 million to societies with one goal - to defeat President Bush. Such support strengthened the campaign brigades at the place of residence, it got to the point that even criminals were involved. Voter registration was riddled with fraud. They handed out leaflets and called voters by phone, misleading them.
- currency manipulation.
Soros made a significant part of his multi-billion dollar fortune from currency transactions. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad accused him of undermining the national currency. In Thailand, he was called an "economic war criminal". Soros initiated the British financial crisis. He dumped 10 billion sterling, which caused the devaluation of the currency, and he himself received 1 billion in profit.
Books by George Soros:
- Alchemy of Finance - 1987
- Discovering Soviet Power - 1990
- Supporting Democracy - 1991
- Democracy Guarantee -1991
- Reading the Mind of the Market - 1994
- Soros on Soros - 1995
- The Crisis of Global Capitalism: The Endangered Open Society - 1998
- Open Society: Reshaping Global Capitalism - 2000
- George Soros on Globalization - 2002
- The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power - 2004
- George Soros on Globalization -2002
- Bubble of American Supremacy -2005
- A New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The 2008 Credit Crisis and Its 2009 Significance
- Financial crisis in Europe and the United States -2012
- Tragedy of the European Union - 2014
Conclusion
“I never tried to stand out. Even when I already had more than one million, I tried to live very modestly, much easier than my finances allowed me.
George Soros, despite the ambiguity of thinking, is considered the great financier of our time. He survived more than one crisis, turned millions of deals, lost millions, but, in the end, turned out to be a winner. Not everyone agrees with his principles. But non-standard thinking and courage in making unexpected decisions make us respect this extraordinary person.
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