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
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.
Hedge funds are a very efficient way of managing money. But there are clearly some risks. Hedge funds use credit and credit is a source of instability. Transactions involving credit should be regulated.
Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.
The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.
When you sell options, you get paid for assuming risk. That can be a profitable business, but it does not mix well with the risks inherent in a leveraged portfolio.
The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.
As the housing boom cools off, there will be a shortfall in demand (which will) affect the global economy.
I think I lost my touch some time ago. I'm like an aging boxer that should not go into the ring,
The absurdity of its illegality has been clear to me for some time. I learned about pot from my kids and realized it was a lot better than Scotch, and I loved the Scotch. Then I went to my doctor, and he said, 'I'm thrilled. You're drinking too much. You're much better off doing pot than drinking.'
I don't think you will see the Fed jumping to interest rates,
I expect by '07 there will be a significant decline in U.S. consumer spending, and I don't see what will take its place, because it's so important as the motor of the world economy.
So I think what needs to happen is he needs to be removed from power,
I hardly knew the man's name, ... He really invented me. He needed me for his political purposes, so I'm a figment of his imagination.