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Mix-Ansicht- Soros will Watchdogs einsetzen, die Verwendung des irakischen Ã-ls verfolgen - kingsolomon, 21.05.2003, 22:01
Soros will Watchdogs einsetzen, die Verwendung des irakischen Ã-ls verfolgen
-->immerhin hätte er den entsprechenden Hintergrund um Old Rummsfeld
gelegentlich in die Suppe zu spucken.
George Soros Back Doing What He Does Best
Wed May 21, 2003 11:25 AM ET
By Peter Graff
LONDON (Reuters) - Financier George Soros is back doing the
two things he does best -- punishing a global currency and spending some of his billions on projects that irk those in power.
This week Soros, who"broke" the British pound in 1992, helped push the U.S. dollar down to a near all-time low against the euro by announcing he was selling greenbacks.
The self-proclaimed"dissident by nature" also said he was setting up a watchdog group to make sure Washington does not misspend oil revenues from Iraq.
Soros may no longer single-handedly wield the power over financial markets he held in the early 1990s, when newspapers dubbed him"the man who broke the Bank of England."
Back then his fund earned $1 billion betting against the pound, helping drive it 20 percent lower and out of the European exchange rate grid. Lately, stung by economic crises in Asia and Russia, his funds have become more conservative.
But with his reputation still formidable -- and his Soros Fund Management controlling $11.5 billion -- his words still count. The dollar tumbled against the euro when he said he thought U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow wanted it to fall.
"I have to disclose that I now have a short position against the dollar because I listen to what the secretary of the Treasury is telling me," Soros said in an interview with broadcaster CNBC.
Soros said Snow's apparent shift away from the strong dollar policy was a"mistake," and a beggar-thy-neighbor policy.
PHILANTHROPIST
The financier, born in Hungary in 1930, has long lavished his billions on philanthropy, especially in eastern Europe. At one point he was said to be spending more on aid to Russia than the U.S. government.
In Eastern Europe his cause was"the open society," and he spent money in areas like education which often earned resentment from authorities in recipient countries wary of, say, textbooks commissioned by a foreigner.
Lately, the arch-capitalist has become an outspoken critic of what he says are unfair aspects of globalization and trade, which he says makes it difficult for poor countries to catch up to wealthy ones.
It is a view more commonly articulated by rock stars than famous financiers, and Britain's Guardian newspaper described him as"the Bono of the financial world."
Soft spoken and elegant, with his lilting continental accent,"he has the air of a philosophy professor rather than a gimlet-eyed financier," an interviewer wrote.
He once said:"Don't forget, I became a philanthropist only after I became a speculator. It is a luxury."
On Tuesday he announced at the United Nations that he would set up a watchdog group to guard against any abuses in how the United States manages Iraqi oil resources.
Citing reports that a handful of U.S. companies were winning huge reconstruction contracts without competitive bidding, Soros said many people around the world feared the United States might abuse its power while it and Britain occupy post-war Iraq.
"It is very much in the interest of the United States to allay these fears, and we want to help," he said.
He also said he hoped Iraq would not repay all foreign debt stemming from Saddam Hussein's years in power, to discourage the practice of lending money to dictators.
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