George Soros

George Soros (born August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary as Soros György) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American currency speculator and philanthropist. Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is known around the world for the role he played in Georgia's Rose Revolution. In the United States he is known for donating large sums of money in an attempt to defeat President George W. Bush's bid for reelection.

Critics

Criticism of financial activities

Critics point out that Soros has an undue influence on currency markets through Quantum Fund, his privately-owned investment fund.

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Furthermore, the fund is registered in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, a Caribbean tax haven which has repeatedly been cited by the International Task Force on Money Laundering of the OECD as one of the world's most important centers for laundering the illegal proceeds of the Latin American drug trade. By operating from Curaçao, Soros not only avoids paying taxes but also hides the identity and nature of his investors and what he does with their money.

Related Topics:
Curaçao - Netherlands Antilles - Caribbean - Tax haven - International Task Force on Money Laundering - OECD - Latin America - Drug trade

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Criticism of political activities

Soros has critics from all over the political spectrum, including from American conservatives, supporters of Israel, and leftists.

Related Topics:
American conservatives - Leftists

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American conservatives dislike his contributions for campaigns against Bush. Some have gone to accusing him of Marxism.http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/12/2/203605.shtml http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2915.html http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10781

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Some critics accuse him of surreptitiously working for the Rothschilds.

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Some who view capitalism as a system of exploitation consider ironic Soros's use of capitalism with other intent to do good, namely to help people.

Related Topics:
Some - Capitalism - Exploitation

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A host of Soros's 2004 Oct. 19 speech to Harrisburg's Tuesday Club, Pennsylvania State Representative Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, has considered some such criticism off-base. He has argued that "Soros is a political pragmatist using his economic resources" for peace and democracy.

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Supporters of Israeli government policy dislike his inflammatory rhetorical comparisons of it to Nazi Germany and Yasser Arafat. Soros has also been called a self-hating Jew, a Jewish antisemite. At a Jewish forum in New York City, Soros reportedly attributed a recent resurgence of antisemitism to the policies of Israel and the United States, and to successful Jews such as himself:

Related Topics:
Nazi Germany - Yasser Arafat - Self-hating Jew - Antisemite - Jew - New York City

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: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.

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:If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish. I can't see how one could confront it directly. . . .

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: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.http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13428

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(Arguably, this could be a result of Soros's Popperian tendency toward self-criticism.)

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