Talk:George Soros/Archive 1

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Project Syndicate

Hello Kaihsu, it is not clear: what is the relationship with Soros to Project Syndicate? Thanks. -- Viajero 15:43, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)

It's "partly" funded by his Open Society Institute. That's the only connection I see. A-giau 08:59, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would dispute that the following sentence is NPOV, which, given the lack of cited sources, is a bit of a worry: These (Soros' organisations) encourage political activity to focus on small-scale volunteer work, promote hierarchy and secret decision making, and discourage civil society from considering fundamental or systematic changes to the free market economic model. -- Pratyeka 13:14, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I completely agree. Although I had been watching this page, I missed that addition. I have moved the whole civil society from considering fundamental or systematic changes to the free market Pratyeka 00:34, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Two dates are given for the book The Bubble[[User:

Apart from the fact that some Americans consider it to be a derogatory term (!), I really can't see that it wouldand his views on capitalism as a way to empower the populac, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

His name in Hungarian is Soros György [read:SHOW-rosh DYEORDY]. (In Hungarian the surname is mentioned first.) - Marcika 16:38, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reflexivity

The reflexivity link goes to "Reflexive relation" which is really nothing to do with the George Soros usage of reflexivity. At the moment it seems that Wikipedia has no definition of reflexivity as would apply to George Soros.

Who researched this guy?!?!?

How was George Soros 14 when Germany occupied Austria, 'at the end of the war?' Austria was one of the first occupied countries, and he was 9 when the war broke out. So, if this is all correct, he was trading foreign currency as a 'young man' at the age of 11ish? Someone needs to recheck their facts. 128.194.54.175 19:07, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Read carefully - Hint: Hungary is not the same as Austria (not since WWI, in any case). -- Marcika 22:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Birth Name Not Soros

Sorry I don't have the reference, but in his biography (book by former NY Times reporter and OSI employee) it was stated that the family changed its name to Soros only near the end of WWII.

make that 1936 (as in current text)

Quotations

Can anyone cite a source for the quotation, "As a market participant, I don't need to be concerned with the consequences of my [financial] actions"?? Based on other things Soros has said, it seems likely that this has been taken out of context or is even totally made up. I can't find any sources for this statement that aren't either derived from this WikiPedia article or are just completely unsourced themselves. The reasons for skepticism -- the cognitive dissonance, if you will -- is so high here I don't even think this should be changed to Citation Needed; I advocate just pulling it altogether unless someone can source it and provide context. Mtiffany 22:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As best I can tell, all mentions of this quote stem from the New Statesman profile of Soros at http://www.newstatesman.com/200306020019. Nothing shows up in Lexis-Nexis, and the NS profile doesn't say where it came from, so I'm thinking they made it up. I'm removing it unless somebody can find the original source for this. --Sapphic 21:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi... isn't the second half of the quote from Victor Niederhoffer (in the "Philosophy" section) somewhat irrelevant? It is no longer about Soros but about Niederhoffer's personal views on the market. Thanks. -- md

I agree, and I've removed the second half. -Willmcw 03:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Role in Georgia's Rose revolution

Dear Fluterst, there are many many sources for Soros' involvement (not just financial) in the Georgian revolution. Just google for it or search on LexisNexis and you'll find a number of newspaper articles describing his involvement.

• "It's generally accepted public opinion here that Mr. Soros is the person who planned Shevardnadze's overthrow" (Globe and Mail, Nov 26, 2003) [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1029727/posts mirror of the article]
• "Former President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze has accused American financier George Soros of organising the events that led to the coup d'etat in that Caucasian republic." (Pravda.ru reports about Rossian TV interview, Dec 01, 2003, [1])
• "The foundation’s activities have included organizing training programs for new council members; building democratic relationships between representatives and constituents; encouraging transparency and accountability; raising public awareness about human rights; educating young people as leaders..." Soros Open Society website Georgia

Family Section

I edited the family section. Mr. Soros only has five children. Paul is his brother, not his son; nor does he have a child named Paul by Susan. He only has two children by Susan. Friend of the Family

Picky, picky

I think the new section on opposition to the Soviet Union is great, but it is obviously POV. Some of the facts should go in other sections, maybe a link to the New Stateman with the quote. In short something should be done in that section, but I don't know what.

There's a minor problem with pronounciation. Soros uses the Hungarian pronouciation in Hungary (show rosh), but (sore oss) elsewhere. BTW, the name means "beer" in Hungarian and is unique to his family.

I never heard him use "sore oss". Other people who do not know how to pronounce it use it that way. BTW, the name does not mean "beer" in Hungarian (that would be "sör" or "sörös", notice the umlauts). -- Marcika 10:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Similarly the Schwartz spelling of his original name is correct when used in the US, but probably incorrect in Hungary. These all might be too complicated and minor to include in the article.

Since Schwartz is a Yiddish name, the spelling is probably correct. (It might be "Schwarz", but I couldn't verify it over the web either way...) -- Marcika 10:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would its Yiddish origin affect its spelling? In Hungary it would almost certainly be spelled "Svarc". Any reason I shouldn't change his birth name to "Svarc György"? Zsero 00:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

We soar?

re last edit. In Hungary the family name is always first, so his birth name really is Schwartz Gyorgy. The derivation of his new family name as coming from the Esparanto "we soar" is undocumented and I think it's proper to remove it until it is documented. There are several possible sources where this might be discussed, e.g. in the 2 long biographies. I'm pretty sure it's not in one of them and there was a fairly long dicussion on the choice of the name. Smallbones 09:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about reversing the names...I assumed it was a typo. I had no idea that Hungarians put the family name first. Who'd've thunk it?

With respect to the Esperanto reference, I checked an on-line Esperanto dictionary (there are such things) and "soros" came up blank. I'll check this further.

Adam Holland 20:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Victor, are you writing this?

I've reverted this paragraph back to the paragraph about insider trading, even though... The French insider trading conviction looks pretty bogus to me (e.g. so many years after the fact, no jail time, "minor" fine, and who else have they ever convicted?) but it does need to be covered. The Famous partners stuff is interesting, but not well done yet, e.g. V.N. is probably one of the most interesting, most intelligent, and most modest traders of the century, but not one of the greatest! I don't think he was a partner. Smallbones 10:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

"Famous Partners Soros has had three main partners at Quantum fund during his career. The first Was Jim Rogers, the cofounder of the fund, the Second Victor Niederhoffer, one of the greatest traders in history, the third Stanley Druckenmiller, who ran both Quantum Fund and his own fund Duquense. Currently his two sons are in command at Quantum."

Jewish charities

Moved from top of the talk section

Since mention is made of Soros's Jewish origins, and his criticism of Jews and Israel, I thought it part of the story to mention his lack of involvement in the Jewish community and his failure to contribute to Jewish charities. Incorrect 06:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• I reverted the edit because it's unverifiable. (It's also, in my opinion, not notable, even if true.) If you have a reputable source for this, and think it's relevant, feel free to put it back in. dbtfz^talk 06:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

ok, the source is the opinion journal sectin of the wall street journal of 3/3/2004 as follows: No less pertinent in this connection is Mr. Soros's problematic relationship to his own Jewishness. Though he often claims authority for his views by invoking his experience under the Nazis--he confided to the Washington Post that some of the things President Bush says "remind . . . me of the Germans"--he is strikingly aloof from his Jewish origins. None of his vast philanthropy has been directed toward Israel, and his coldness toward the Jewish state has on occasion shaded into outright hostility: in a speech last May to the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, Mr. Soros likened the behavior of Israel to that of the Nazis, invoking some psychological jargon about victims becoming victimizers.

It is not only Israel that Mr. Soros abjures but Jewish charities in general, an attitude he attributes to his observations of the Judenrat, or Jewish council, that the Nazis created in Budapest, for which he worked as a courier, and by a rather weird experience with the Jewish Board of Guardians during his years in London. If blaming Jewish organizations--or Israel--for the works of the Nazis is hard to fathom, his attitude toward the Board of Guardians is no more explicable. It seems he appealed to it for financial support after breaking a leg, but the board arranged instead for him to receive a British government stipend. When he wrote an aggrieved letter deploring this as a tawdry way for "one Jew [to] treat . . . another in need," the board backed down and provided him with a cash allowance for the duration of his recovery. Later, he would confess insouciantly to his biographer the reason he had been so angry: He had already arranged to receive the government payment and had hidden this fact from the board in the hope of receiving duplicate benefits. It was, he said, "a double-dip," and one that "solved all my financial problems." "My Jewishness [does] not express itself in a sense of tribal loyalty," Mr. Soros explains. About this he is certainly correct. "I [take] pride in being . . . an outsider who [is] capable of seeing the other point of view." About this he is correct as well, if by "other" we understand "adversary." In any event, this flight from Jewish particularism into a willed universalism is itself a familiar reflex, if not a full-fledged syndrome, among many Jews in the modern era, one of whom, a Yiddish-speaking philologist, was sufficiently inspired by it to invent Esperanto. In Mr. Soros, it has been taken to a startling extreme.

I believe the above has now properly sourced the statement which I will, without objection, reinstate - if anyone wants to delete it again, feel free, I'm out of here, getting into editing wars is not my idea of fun. Incorrect 06:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Some of this seems POV, e.g. the word "abjure" which is something like "a solemn rejection." I haven't read the WSJ piece, but I'd think that plain old critisizm of Isreal wouldn't qualify as "abjuring." Also critisizing somebody for not giving charity to a specific group seems to me to be POV all in itself. Who should we mention this about and who would we leave out this information about. Everybody doesn't donate to some group. For instance, why aren't you donating to Inuit charities? I'll strip the current comment down to what seems like plain facts. Smallbones 10:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The passage now reads: "He does not provide philanthropy to the state of Isreal or to causes that are exclusively Jewish. (See his commentary in the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2004).". The piece cited is not by Soros; it is an anti-Soros opinion piece by Joshua Muravhcik of the American Enterprise Institute. Also, it is real wrong to spell it "Isreal". I'm not going to edit the passage myself because that would suggest endorsement of it being in the article at all. Personally, it strikes me as a weaselly way of calling Soros a self-hating Jew. dbtfz^talk 01:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was thinking that some of this could be taken at face value. Obviously not. Stripping it down to the bare facts, just showed that they raelly aren't facts at all. Smallbones 09:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I think removing the edit was probably best. There is a fact here, namely that someone claimed in an opinion piece that Soros "abjures" Jewish charities. But if that were stated clearly, it would not seem particularly relevant or notable. It appears that Soros has written about this matter somewhere, and it could very well be worth noting in the article, but someone should take the time to do the actual research and cite Soros himself. dbtfz^talk 15:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It's ridiculous that he hates Israel and isolates himself from Jewish organizations. A man with great power, he is a total waste to Jews. Alexisrael

Here is a link to piece on George Soros's anti-semitic views, with source links below the article: http://judaism.about.com/library/2_americanjewry/bl_soros.htm Notintimidated 15:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Change of views?

Seems I once read somewhere, Soros was a Reagan supporter, but his views have cahnged over the years from Center-Right to Center-Left and some would argue "far Left", any documentation on this? Seems he became active due to his opposition of Bush?

- Soros has always been committed to open societies (as per Popper's concept), and this has been a hallmark of both his philosophy and his philanthropy. I don't think it's too difficult to see Soros as supporting Raegan (in a fight against closed societies in formerly communist countries) and opposing Bush due to seeing him as a fundamental threat to open society (e.g. the Patriot act in the US with increased surveillance of US citizens, increased police and government powers with no oversight, deliberately supporting the shredding of the geneva convention by instructing senior counsel to find ways around it, by advocating US use of torture, by setting up US torture facilities in Gauntanamo bay etc, by escalaating the use of extraordinary rendition and the use of torture in allied countries rather than on US soil, etc) in this light. It seems entrely consistent to me - Soros has been committed to the same principles in an ongoing fashion - an open society. Raegan was for it, Bush by his actions seems to be clearly against it. In short, Bush seems to advocating and doing exactly what Soros spent his life fighting, due to his former experiences in Europe. LMackinnon 00:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Possessive see Apostrophe

The possessive should be "Soros's" not "Soros' ", see Apostrophe. This is especially so, if the last s in the name is pronounced sh as is proper in the Hungarian. Occasionally some authorities allow Charles' instead of Charles's, but nobody would say goulash' instead of goulash's

The guide I use allows omission of the apostrophe only for Jesus and Moses. Maybe Soros supporters think he's as good a man as these biblical figures. --Wing Nut 15:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Opposition to Soros

Conservatives oppose Soros for his liberal activism:

• From abortion rights groups to drug reform initiatives, Soros' domestic funding generally ends up in the hands of liberals. [2]
• Soros ... has expressed outrage at the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially its decision to invade Iraq.
• The self-proclaimed atheist also created the Project on Death in America to generate debate about the dying process and "alleviate unnecessary suffering."
• Among the beneficiaries of Soros' largesse is the Center for Reproductive Rights, the pro-abortion group
• Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, an authority on Christian values, said Soros wants to destroy the values on which the United States was founded. Williams called Soros "morally bankrupt".

  "He hates God and his biblical principles. He hates everything that's godly," Williams said. "He's jumping up and down at the thought that same-sex marriages could happen in this country. It's a direct assault on the church, the institutions that restrain and restrict our behavior and remind us of the standard of morality and moral absolutes."

• "No one knows what demons drive Mr. Soros to consistently fund anti-family agendas," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute at Concerned Women for America. "But he seems determined to turn the world upside down and replace morality with immorality."
• Robert McGinnis, a former vice president of the Family Research Council who researched Soros' philanthropy while working there, said

  "U.S. citizens need to be wary of the fact that he is embracing a pro-drug, anti-life agenda."

• The Capital Research Center, which tracks philanthropists like Soros, found that the Open Society Institute has a pattern of giving to liberal groups that support drug legalization, euthanasia, immigrant entitlements and feminism.

  "There is a consistent thread through everything he does," said John Carlisle, editor of the center's Organization Trends and Foundation Watch. "He's a devout secular ideologue."

Some of the above should go in the criticism section. --Wing Nut 15:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's a strident attack on Soros by Michael Savage (commentator):

• "So this man compares the death of 3,000 Americans to radical Muslim hijackers and murders, to the humiliation of a number of Iraqi prisoners, by a very small number of American troops. This is called the big lie. And if you tell a big lie often enough it will become the truth. That's what Goebbels, Hitler's media man, said, and that's what Soros and the others at this Communist rally yesterday, call Take Back America or doing. It's unbelievable to me. And he keeps doing it, and doing it, and doing it. And this does remind me of a very dangerous time in the past. This man is a clear and present danger to America. He's declared war on America ..." [3] --Wing Nut 15:50, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

So are you a right wing nut or a left wing nut?? Smallbones

Who exactly made Armstrong Williams "an authority on Christian values"? Armstrong Williams, I'm guessing. More disturbingly, somebody put "Jewish" in front of "financial speculator" in the introductory statement about Soros' notability.

This isn't a matter of simply including the fact of Soros' ethnic Jewishness in the story. That fact already was where one would naturally expect it, under the heading "family"! The tactic of inserting "Jewish" as an adjective in front of "financial speculator" is a matter of playing to deadly stereotypes. --Christofurio 17:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Anti-Jewish edits

I hate to revert back to my previous edits, but did so in this case because the edits by Eppeflesh strike me as being anti-Jewish. I know this is a sensitive issue, so I'll ask other editors to take a look and see if I'm missing something or reading something in that's not there. Personally, I'm a non-practicing Espiscopalian.(Is that redundant?) Smallbones 12:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

And actually, I am Jewish. The edits are not anti-Jewish. They simply reflect the fact that Soros is, perhaps as a result of his background, disinclined to support Jewish causes. If I were to seek to put in his anti-Jewish quotes, I would put in the one about his view that Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism.

All in all, I appreciate your sensitivity, but would ask that you put back the language that you just took out. Thanks.

--Epeefleche 14:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

So for example, that language about how a father's effort to save his family's life was a "charade" was necessary to show why that father's son doesn't support Jewish causes? No sale. --Christofurio 15:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The phrase charade is not important. What is important is that he, from an early age, had to conceal the fact that he was Jewish to survive. Nothing anti-semitic about that. That sentence can be revised as follows if you think for some reason that it is anti-semitic (which I, frankly, do not see).

"The Soros family pretended to be Christian, splitting up with forged papers to protect them from discovery, to survive the Nazi search for Jews."

The complaint above was that the entry was anti-semitic. I hope this addresses those concerns.

BTW, this is a fact pointed out in many writings on Soros, including p. 27 of Robert Slater's biography of him. --Epeefleche 16:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the word "charade" is pretty important, in that it indicates bias. If Robert Slater's biography uses that word in this context, then shame on him. Also, to say that the Nazis were just "searching" for Jews rather understates the reason for the forgeries, doesn't it? What did they plan to do when they found a few? Pass out dreidels? There's much else that's wrong with this passage, and if you can't see it than I understand why you couldn't even see the problem with the word "charade." --Christofurio 17:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

How about helping me by "fixing" it then?

I believe that is what wilkipedia suggests.

I expect that the phrase "to survive the Nazi search for Jews" might, in the mind of some, suggest that the search was for a reason other than passing out dreidels. But feel free to amplify, if you believe that that, coupled with the other references to the Holocause earlier in the paragraph ["... Nazi Germany ... started exterminating over 440,000 Hungarian Jews"] is not enough.

I don't have a quarrel with making sure that this is not anti-semitic. But it would perhaps be of some small assistance if you were to provide suggestions. --Epeefleche 18:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

And Smallbones, I would respectfully request that you undo your revert in accordance with the below Wikipedia policy:

"Avoidance

The best way to resolve a dispute is to avoid it in the first place.

Be respectful to others and their points of view. This means primarily: Do not simply revert changes in a dispute. When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it. "

I think I'm avoiding a problem by calling in other editors. The tone of this and a couple previous edits seemed to me to be somewhat aggressive, as if you are trying to prove some moral point. If it's just the 3 of us here to decide, I think your edit stays out. There are some facts that can be put in - without loaded language, maybe "To survive the Nazi hunt for Jews, the Soros family split up, used forged papers, and pretended to be Christian." I'll let others decide. Smallbones 18:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

That works for me for that sentence.

There certainly isnt any intent here to be anti-semitic.

Just to point out the important points that he avoids supporting Jewish causes and Israel with his philanthropy, and an important part about his past that relates to how he had to distance himself from his Jewishness to survive.

Shall we now revert?

Thanks. --Epeefleche 18:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Whoops .. and oh ... the Wikipedia suggestion, unless I misread it, is to first take the approach I quoted above, rather than revert the language and then call in others. Thanks.--Epeefleche 18:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

You might quote the pertinent language from the Robert Slater biography you've cited as your source. We can work from that -- without committing copyvio, of course. --Christofurio 18:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, we shouldn't leap from the premise that someone doesn't contribute to a certain cause to the inference that this person avoids contributing to that cause. Maybe he just has other things that strike him as more pressing. That hardly requires psychoanalysis. There are more than a billion things that even a billionaire could contribute to, so inevitably there are some he doesn't. Until you quote the specific wording of the Slater passage you've referenced, I can't say that you've made any kind of a case for this sort of thing at all. I bet he hasn't contributed any money to, say, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. This doesn't mean he's anti-SETI or really ... anything. Doesn't warrant grubbing in his youth for traumas that he can supposedly "avoid" by not giving money to SETI. So at best this all still sounds irrelevant, and at worst it still sounds like, "Gee those sneaky people, look at what they did to avoid being murdered. What charades!" --Christofurio 20:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Tied up for the moment, but will try to handle next week. As to whether that inference is any leap of faith, you might find this interesting. There is a lot of this stuff out there, from both the right and the left, the jews and the antisemites, if u take a glance at the web. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10781--Epeefleche 21:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a "lot of stuff out there" in general that out to be kept out of encyclopedias. --Christofurio 14:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:George Soros/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

inline HTML links needs to be converted to ref tags and otherwise also needs inline references. plange 23:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 23:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)