George Soros
George Soros
George Sorosis a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, political activist and author who is of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry and holds dual citizenship. He is chairman of Soros Fund Management. He is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" because of his short sale of US$10 billion worth of pounds, making him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. Soros is one of the 30 richest people in the world...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth12 August 1930
CityBudapest, Hungary
but recently we have seen financial markets sometimes move more like a wrecking ball, knocking over one economy after another.
Something really is broken in the international financial architecture, ... We're now in the 20th month of financial crisis. Yet this crisis was brewing, it was the most anticipated crisis in recent history.
He is actually doing the right thing for himself because he is preserving himself in power, and he puts himself in a position where he can bail out his cronies who are in financial difficulties, including his son and so on,
I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.
The financial markets play an active role in determining what's going to happen, how the economy is going to function.
As I discovered, there is a great deal of similarity between a boom-bust process in the financial markets and the rise and fall of the Soviet system.
The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.
Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.
As an anonymous participant in financial markets, I never had to weigh the social consequences of my actions ... I felt justified in ignoring them on the grounds that I was playing by the rules.
The global crisis is caused by pathologies inherent in the global financial system itself.
As the housing boom cools off, there will be a shortfall in demand (which will) affect the global economy.
We have come to realize that a large hedge fund like Quantum Fund is no longer the best way to manage money, ... Markets have become extremely unstable and historical measures of value at risk no longer apply.
Most of the capital (in Indonesia) is in the hands of limited business groups, which don't feel so secure here. Any slightest risk will cause them take their money to Singapore.
I think I lost my touch some time ago. I'm like an aging boxer that should not go into the ring,