RW buddy says Soros bankrupted a country...WTF??

[Spiffarino]

My good friend told me the other day that George Soros used his hedge fund or some other device to bankrupt a small country. I told him I'd never heard of such a thing, but he said "Oh yeah. I think it was Moldova or some country with a similar name." He was awfully sure of himself, but I am pretty sure it's a load he was fed by Rush, MRC, NewsMax, or some other factually-challenged scion of RW "journalism."

Does anybody know what he might be talking about?? I've googled the hell out of it, but all I have found is that Soros runs some kind of foundation in Moldova. I've found nothing nefarious, not even on MRC.

My friend is very intelligent and has an almost photographic memory, but I think he's slipped on this one. Confirm?

And yes, this fellow really is a friend. Unfortunately, Rush and Co. and his hardline fundie church must have put a spell on him. He's a generous guy. He and his wife work at a food bank for homeless people, and they do all kinds of community work. The fact that he's a big ol' Republican is the only thing I would change about him.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Well, Bush bankrupted three corporations and is quickly bankrupting

this country.

[burythehatchet]

2. Soros financial shenanigans in the currency markets have had a devastating

impact on some Asian countries. Though I do not have ready links to support that.

[papau]

15. In 87 he lost 1/2 B on Japan, but recovered it all with the Tory Brits &

the pound in 1992 - and the collapse of the European monetary system, and resulting transfer of billions of pounds from Her Majesty's Treasury to Soros'pocket. He borrowed 6.7B in Sterling and converted it to Dutch and other currency - waited a bit and paid back the "6.7" with 5.6B in other currency - now worth 6.7B, profiting by 1.1 B.


While he is said to look for Bush/Thatcher/Tory stupidity everywhere - and to have found it in some Asian currency crises of 1996 and 1998 - I do not recall the details of what he did or hour much he made.

The 1/2 B lost in Japan was when he bought the Reagan right wing ideas and bet on the great Japan economy to come back first after the worldwide 87 crash, thinking that the zero interest/low interest (sound like last 4 years under Bush?) in Japan would zoom the economy and stock market sooner and more than the rest of the world - 'cause bad Budget/bad banking did not matter.

[Taxloss]

30. He crashed sterling in 1992. Panicked the government.

Destroyed the career of Norman Lamont, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the time.

The real problem was, however, the RW government. Sterling was already sliding, long before Soros came along. It was Sterling's weakness that allowed Soros to crash Sterling (and this is against the Deutschmark, not the dollar), and it was the Bank of England's reaction, under command from the government, that allowed him to profit: The government poured billions of pounds into protecting the pound, trying to buoy it up. Utterly wasted money. In the end, it was all for nothing and the pound dropped like a stone. The response of the panicking government was to crank up interest rates - in one day they slapped them up something like 10-15%, only to reverse that action within days when they realised they were initiating economic meltdown.

In the end, the lower pound helped Britain escape recession - we exported our way to recovery, because British products were cheaper.

Ironic that all the RW govt's actions to end recession failed, but the thing they fought desperately against turned the supertanker.

[Kellanved]

3. Is he talking about the UK?

That is the only thing involving Soros that I can remember.


:shrug:

[Lostnote03]

4. Yes I believe he is......Britain

[papau]

9. The UK and was it Thatcher's Bush like policies? - Seems he is doing

a repeat now betting against the dollar.

I don't see how Soro's hurt the Brits - or will hurt the US.

Thatcher and Bush can claim credit for that.

[autorank]

5. Soros made a move on Malaysian currency...spanked them.

Recall that the Malaysian Prime Minister made some outrageous anti-semitic comment a few years ago. He doesn't bankrupt anybody. The governments make stupid errors, like the British did the the Sterling, and he takes advantage of it.

[Oversea Visitor]

19. Yes he did attack the South East Asian Currency

This was in 1997. I am from Malaysia, our Prime Minister was yes very piss and we peg our currency to the US dollars after that. Malaysia would have suffer more if we listen to IMF and World Bank. But our Prime Minister goes again the advice and peg the currency.

Many people commit sucide because their life was shatter by this currency attack. The goverments in this region did not make any errors, all this mumbo jumbo you hear its simply an excuse for some rich powerful people to make tons of money.

The crsis wipe out close to 40% of our country wealth. Let me tell you in lay man terms of the effect.
Say you order in US 10 million worth of goods. Just before the crisis
this was only 237 million in our currency but in 24 hours due the attack it is now 422 million. Lots of people was force into bankruptcy and many took their own life cause they saw that their whole future was shattered.

Oh yes you can laugh about the countries that was spanked. Oh yes you can laugh at the people who lifes was shattered. Oh yes laugh at the people who kill themself cause of this.

It does not change the fact that the act of currency speculation for gain of the few and suffering to the many is wrong. Its 2005 now and we still suffering the effect in fact the ripple of this attack was felt worldwide.

[Yupster]

6. As Harry Truman said about some tyrant we were propping up

"Sure he's a son of a bith, but he's our son of a bitch."

[Spiffarino]

11. OK

I lol'd at this one! :D

[HuskiesHowls]

7. Well, he has done some funny things with money...

<snip>
1992

On Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992), Soros became instantly famous when, believing the Pound Sterling was overvalued, sold short more than $10bn worth of pounds. The Bank of England was forced to withdraw the currency out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and Soros earned an estimated US$ 1.1 billion in the process. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England."

The Times October 26, 1992, Monday: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell."


1997

In 1997, under similar circumstances during the Asian financial crisis, then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad accused Soros of bringing down the Malaysian currency, the ringgit.
<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

It seems he's just been taking advantage of circumstances.

[dweller]

8. unless he's got some facts to back it up

and Google search found nothing reported of it, then you could call bs on it until he gives up some evidence of his claim.

:shrug:

dp

[Telly Savalas]

12. Paul Krugman wrote an essay on it in the '90's

I believe it was in this book.

[Spiffarino]

13. I'm going to ask him about it tomorrow

Call!

I can't wait to see where he got this buttnugget. I always tell him there's news, and then there's right-wing "news", always waving the finger quotes when I say it. Drives him nuts. :evilgrin:

[MichiganVote]

10. Was it illegal? Doesn't sound like it. If his financial dealings

were illegal, seems to me Bush or the Justice Dept. should have called him out. Have they? No.

[Tinoire]

14. Soros... Some stuff... Saved from an old post but very incomplete

total destabilization of Indonesia
meltdown of the Asian economy beginning with the collapse of the Thailand baht & quickly spreading to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea.

Also the looting of the Russian economy, Ukraine and Belorussia

All of it under the guise of Democracy. I wish I hadbookmarked that recent LBN article about the young Czech kid who burnt himself alive and left a letter thanking us Americans for this "wonderful" democracy we brought to them.

Lasy year he was fined $2m for insider trading by a court in France.

Soros, who has or had business ties with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, the Carlyle Group, the CIA's Radio Free Europe, Wesley Clark, Richard Allen and George W. Bush (through Harken Energy), is not a friendly, tree-hugging, progressive out to save the world. He is the fist in a velvet glove to the Neocons' baseball bat across the nose. OCTOBER 20 , 2003 BEYOND BUSH II by Michael C.
Ruppert Peak Oil Dominates http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102003_beyond_bush_2.html

=====

At Human Rights Watch, for example, there is Morton Abramowitz, US assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research from 1985-89, and now a fellow at the interventionist Council on Foreign Relations; ex-ambassador Warren Zimmerman (whose spell in Yugoslavia coincided with the break-up of that country); and Paul Goble, director of communications at the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which Soros also funds). Soros's International Crisis Group boasts such "independent" luminaries as the former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Richard Allen, as well as General Wesley Clark, once Nato supreme allied commander for Europe. The group's vice-chairman is the former congressman Stephen Solarz, once described as "the Israel lobby's chief legislative tactician on Capitol Hill" and a signatory, along with the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, to a notorious letter to President Clinton in 1998 calling for a "comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime".

Take a look also at Soros's business partners. At the Carlyle Group, where he has invested more than $100m, they include the former secretary of state James Baker and the erstwhile defence secretary Frank Carlucci, George Bush Sr and, until recently, the estranged relatives of Osama Bin Laden. Carlyle, one of the world's largest private equity funds, makes most of its money from its work as a defence contractor.

<snip>

So why is he so upset with Bush? The answer is simple. Soros is angry not with Bush's aims—of extending Pax Americana and making the world safe for global capitalists like himself—but with the crass and blundering way Bush is going about it. By making US ambitions so clear, the Bush gang has committed the cardinal sin of giving the game away. For years, Soros and his NGOs have gone about their work extending the boundaries of the "free world" so skilfully that hardly anyone noticed. Now a Texan redneck and a gang of overzealous neo-cons have blown it.

<snip>
As a cultivated and educated man (a degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics, honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Yale, Bologna and Budapest), Soros knows too well that empires perish when they overstep the mark and provoke the formation of counter-alliances. He understands that the Clintonian approach of multilateralism—whereby the US cajoles or bribes but never does anything so crude as to threaten—is the only one that will allow the empire to endure. Bush's policies have led to a divided Europe, Nato in disarray, the genesis of a new Franco-German-Russian alliance and the first meaningful steps towards Arab unity since Nasser.

Soros knows a better way—armed with a few billion dollars, a handful of NGOs and a nod and a wink from the US State Department, it is perfectly possible to topple foreign governments that are bad for business, seize a country's assets, and even to get thanked for your benevolence afterwards. Soros has done it.

<snip>
http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/George-Soros-Statesman2jun03.htm

PROFITEERS OF EMPIRE –
CHENEY, SOROS, AND CO.

<snip>

Now don't get the wrong idea: the profiteers of globalism are by no means exclusively Republicans. I may have a special animus toward the Republican variety, as I'll readily admit, but the Cheney-Halliburton connection is small potatoes compared to some of the big boys, like George Soros. While Halliburton's subsidiary, the engineering firm of Brown and Root, has the contract for building the extensive infrastructure required by US troops in the Balkans, Soros has set himself up as the official banker and chief investor of the region – under US government auspices and with US taxpayers money. Soros Fund Management LLC is investing $50 million in a project to aid business expansion while the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) – an agency of the federal government – will put up another $100 million in "loan guarantees." At an official ceremony inaugurating the program, Soros declared ``Of all the people present, I'm the most nervous, because I actually have to deliver.''


DELIVER US FROM EVIL
But it was NATO that delivered first. Soros was a key figure in the propaganda campaign leading up to the Kosovo war, first through his financing of the American Committee to Save Bosnia and a whole bevy of groups, many of them militant Muslims, preaching intervention in the Balkans on behalf of "human rights" The Soros propaganda machine ceaselessly agitated for war with Serbia, and when it came he and his pet "human rights" activists applauded the longest and the loudest. Now that NATO has come through, Soros must "deliver" – that is, create profits for himself and his investors. While known as a philanthropist, if a highly eccentric one, Soros emphasized that his fund would practice "tough love" and, in the words of the Bloomberg News report, "be driven purely by profit." To the victor goes the spoils.

THE PROPHET MOTIVE
But all of us are driven by profit, even the ascetic Ralph Nader and the hermits who mortify the flesh and live out in the desert – for there is such a thing as a purely psychic profit, that is a value that is not monetary but which exists in our minds nonetheless: religion, obligation, love, revenge, or any number of other purely human motives, both sacred and profane. Through his Open Society Institute (OSI), which has insinuated itself into academia, government, and every level of public discourse, Soros has poured his fantastic wealth into causes as various as cheerleading US intervention in the Balkans, funding Arianna Huffington's three-ring "Shadow Convention," and calling for drug decriminalization – and he reaps his psychic profit, i.e. the personal satisfaction of seeing his ideas take root. With branches throughout Europe and Asia, OSI preaches a "free-trade" version of international socialism, a universalist creed hostile to the idea of national sovereignty. He for some reason is particularly concerned with the problem of how to manage international monetary institutions via a single centralized authority, a world central bank run by global economic planners. In spite of the fact that he made his fortune as a speculator who famously broke the Bank of England, Soros has denounced laissez-faire in a very boring book, and has also called for international regulation that would prohibit the very activities that have made him one of the richest men on earth.

<snip>

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j073100.html
==================================================================

More on Bushladen Carlyle Group:
George Soros & James Baker are part of the Family


The first Bushladen article can be found at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm


The article, written by Alice Cherbonnier, deals with the world's largest private equity firm, The Carlyle Group, a company that links George Bush Sr. and the family of Osama bin Laden. ]


Copyright © 2001 'The Baltimore Chronicle and the SENTINEL'

Republican-controlled Carlyle Group poses serious Ethical Questions for Bush Presidents, but Baltimore Sun ignores it
by Alice Cherbonnier

AN IMPORTANT TENET of journalism is that you should always ask, “Who benefits?”
In the case of a war, the answers to this question become of paramount importance. Suppose, for example, that profits from military contracting were to go in the pockets of a former U.S. President whose son (and a presumed future heir) is now President? Suppose further that such profits escalate in times of conflict. Wouldn’t this be of concern to the public? Wouldn’t you expect the media to be all over such an important ethical (not to mention moral, and maybe legal) angle?

Though described by the Industry Standard as “the world’s largest private equity firm,” with over $12 billion under management, chances are readers haven’t ever heard of The Carlyle Group. Isn’t that a little odd, considering it is run by a veritable who's who of former Republican political leaders. Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci is Carlyle’s chairman and managing director (who, by the way, was college roommate of the current Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld). And that partners in this mammoth venture include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III, George Soros, Fred Malek (George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, forced to resign when it was revealed he was Nixon’s “Jew counter”), and—presumably—George H.W. Bush?

We say “presumably” because the privately-held Carlyle doesn’t have to reveal information about its partners or investments to the SEC or to anyone else. Our former President is reported to be active in seeking investments for the Carlyle Group from the Asian market, and word is he’s paid between $80,000 to $100,000 per presentation.

All told, Carlyle has about 420 partners all over the globe, from Saudi princes to the former president of the Philippines. Its investments run heavily in the defense sector; they make money from military conflicts and weapons spending. But who in Baltimore knows about it?

<snip>

From the Baltimore Chronicle
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/media3_oct01.shtml

Soros's actions with Harken and Kanputun Oil, The Carlyle Group, and the Quantum Fund --- quite interesting reads... Should horrify any DUer.

[Spiffarino]

16. Jebus. What a downer.

And thank you for it. Wow.

[Tinoire]

20. Sorry for the downer. Just wanted you to have that because

the only 2 groups who bother with details anymore are Conservatives and Leftists.

We lose a lot of credibility, I think, when we refuse to face the truth head on. Thanks for your open mind. Minstrel Boy's Lennon quote is sadly appropriate for this situation. Soros is no hero- he's just out to protect his investments and Bush isn't very good for business. People like Soros, you just have to watch in action. I follow the news about him once a week and it's never a pretty picture.

If Soros were such a savior to us, he would have bought us a TV station or two. Instead...

==

From the UK's The Independent:

Soros 'speculating against dollar'
Pound surges to five-year high against US currency. Buffett also said to be betting against greenback

By Philip Thornton and Michael Jivkov
28 November 2003


The pound surged against the dollar yesterday amid speculation that Warren Buffett and George Soros, the world's most famous speculators, are betting the US currency will plummet.Sterling powered to a five-year high against the dollar for a second day as concerns over the US current account deficit continued to outweigh evidence of a rebounding economy.Traders believe selling the dollar is a one-way bet, and some latched on to rumours that speculators were building "short" positions on the dollar - betting it will tumble in the coming months.One hedge fund manager, who asked not to be named, said: "I have heard that both Soros and Buffett are shorting the dollar. There's a growing belief on Wall Street that the dollar is looking like a one-way bet downwards."

A spokesman for Mr Soros, who famously "broke" the Bank of England when the pound crashed out of the exchange rate mechanism a decade ago, said he never commented on speculation. Mr Buffett was unavailable for comment.The surge in the pound to $1.7155, its strongest level since October 1998, was boosted after Merrill Lynch forecast the dollar would plunge a further 8 per cent by the end of next year.

Demand for the dollar has waned on concern the country will not attract enough capital to fund its record current account deficit, which is expected to break through 5 per cent of GDP this year.In a massive revision to its forecast issued on the eve of yesterday's Thanksgiving holiday, Merrill Lynch said the pound would hit $1.85 - which would be its highest level since 1992.The blue chip Wall Street bank said sterling would rise on signs of returning economic strength, rising interest rates and hope that the Government won't raise taxes before a 2005 election. But it warned that the surge in the pound would be short-lived as the concerns overhanging the UK - from a budget deficit, huge consumer indebtedness and a tight labour market - would come home to roost."Bubble trouble currencies such as the pound should continue to do well for now," it said. "But upsides in the currencies in these regions should end next year as tighter conditions threaten to burst credit bubbles and shape market expectations of lower rates." Merrill Lynch expects the dollar to tumble to $1.33 against the euro, a drop of 12 per cent from yesterday's $1.19 value. But it cut its forecast for the euro to surge to 80p against the pound - a level that would smooth sterling's entry into the single currency - to 73p.

A surge in the pound against the dollar will be a boon for British tourists but could cause headaches for both businesses and the Bank of England.Khuram Chaudhry, a strategist at Merrill Lynch, said: "UK investors may find company sales exposure to the US unfavourable in this scenario.A stronger domestic currency is likely to mean the Bank is less likely to raise interest rates aggressively." David Bloom, a global economist at HSBC who does not see the pound going much above $1.70, said any spike in the pound would be short-lived. "If you want to sell the dollar because you believe in the structural problems such as the current account deficit then you buy the pound but there's a downside because the UK is also looking a trade deficit, an indebted economy," he said. "If you think those factors will cause the dollar to fall then the pound should fall as well." He said the main beneficiary should be the euro, which has smaller deficits - despite the high-profile row over the stability and growth pact. He said HSBC was sticking with its historic forecast for a dollar-euro rate of $1.35. Mr Bloom warned that if the pound were to fall it could tumble even further than the dollar as there would be little interest from other countries to prop it up.

(snip)

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=467972

===

On edit: Here are some more links someone recommended but I haven't read them all... Peace

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL307A.html
.
http://www.womensgroup.org/davos_20000903.html
.
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/bl-o-95.html
.
http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d1207hc.htm
.
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9...
.
http://www.ljudmila.org/nettime/zkp4/49.htm

[Minstrel Boy]

17. Thank you, Tinoire, for bringing light and heat

to the topic.

The thinking that Soros can do no wrong, or is somehow "one of us," is almost too sad to even debate.

If we're going to defeat these high criminals, we have to be our own heroes. Even our own saviours. It's like John Lennon said: "There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky / Now that I found out I know I can cry." And Soros ain't no Jesus.

[Tinoire]

22. Yes, and it's sad

It seems what happens is that so many of us WANT to believe. Well, not to mention the fact that the media really sucks.

No Santa Claus either...

[Oversea Visitor]

21. 1997 Soros attack on the South East Asian Currency

is behind us now in this region. Its water under the bridge. But I personally will never forget or forgive him for what he did. So many life was shattered by this. Two of my friend was force into bankruptcy their company wipeout because of the attack.

Soros is a predator, a parasite who lives of people hardwork and use the currency market to tranfer the wealth of this good work into profit for himself and his friend.

Be wary of him.

[Tinoire]

23. Ah yes.. .Welcome to this thread. You're from that region -Malaysia?

Forgive me if I named the wrong country. It's good to hear a personal voice about it. I read about the economic devastation he caused in that region and what a horrible domino effect it had on other South Asian countries.

Well my comfort is that at least he's not American. He's Hungarian. We have enough to apologize for with Bush on our hands ;)

[Oversea Visitor]

28. Yes I am from Malaysia

and no we dont blame US for what happen in 1997, we blame Soros.

[Spiffarino]

26. To me, you are the most credible person

...to speak about Soros' effect on South Asia. Thanks for your insight.

[Oversea Visitor]

29. The reason

I am looking at the US so closely is because of my fear on the US dollars. John Snow say leave in to market force. Market force is supply and demand. The US dollars in now in a very weak position and at anytime can be subjected to attack. It is a very dangerous. Maintaining a strong US dollar is very expensive hence no countries is doing it. However if an attack occur there will be panic and the US dollars can easily slide down by 30% in a day. That is a very scary thought. If that happen it can wipe out many companies and people in the US.

[jdj]

25. if he's really tied in with those folks then what is this

some black op using Soros to infiltrate the left and destroy it forever? Sorry if I sound paranoid, but Henry Kissinger?

[Stirk]

18. Conservatives don't get it.

Discrediting prominent liberals will not demoralize the left. We don't have "leaders" and we don't toe the line. That's the whole point.

But I wouldn't expect authoritarian, boot-licking Republicans to understand that.

[sendero]

24. Not only that...

... whatever Soros' did or didn't do was simply the "free market entrepreneurship" crap that the pukes all love! Since when did a Repugncan care about the consequences, as long as $$$ was made?

Every time someone on the left comes along, the right has to make up some bullshit to point out that he's a bad person. Screw that, Bush** has killed tens of thousands in Iraq and wrecked our economy in the process, don't preach at me about Soros.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

27. .