Can I listen to George Soros?

Yes. HearLore has a narrated audio version of the full George Soros story. Free to listen, no account needed.

What connects to George Soros?

Every story on HearLore connects to the next. Follow the threads from George Soros to find the rabbit hole waiting at the far end.

Where can I listen to George Soros?

You can listen to the full George Soros story at hearlore.com/topic/george-soros. Narrated for listening, free, and connected to every story that shares a thread with it.

Ch. 1 · Childhood In Budapest

George Soros.

~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 7

On the 12th of August 1930, György Schwartz was born in Budapest to a prosperous non-observant Jewish family. His father Tivadar worked as a lawyer and edited an Esperanto literary magazine called Literatura Mondo. The family changed their name from Schwartz to Soros in 1936 as protective camouflage against rising antisemitism in Hungary. The new name meant next in Hungarian and will soar in Esperanto. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary on the 19th of March 1944, thirteen-year-old George faced immediate danger. The Nazis barred Jewish children from attending school and forced them to report to the Judenrat or Jewish Council. He received small slips of paper at the council that listed names of Hungarian Jewish lawyers for deportation. His father told him to deliver these notices but warned people not to report if they wanted to survive. The family survived by purchasing documents claiming they were Christians. At age fourteen, he posed as the Christian godson of a government official who had a Jewish wife in hiding. During the Siege of Budapest in 1945, Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city. He spent time hiding with the family of Elza Brandeisz and attended their Lutheran church.

From Clerk To Speculator

In 1954, George Soros began his financial career at the merchant bank Singer & Friedlander in London. He worked first as a clerk before moving to the arbitrage department. A fellow employee named Robert Mayer suggested he apply at his father's brokerage house F.M. Mayer in New York. By 1956, Soros moved to New York City where he specialized in European stocks becoming popular with U.S. institutional investors. In 1959, after three years at F.M. Mayer, he moved to Wertheim & Co. as an analyst of European securities until 1963. During this period, he developed the theory of reflexivity extending ideas from his tutor Karl Popper at the London School of Economics. Reflexivity posits that market values are often driven by fallible ideas of participants rather than economic fundamentals alone. Ideas and events influence each other in reflexive feedback loops creating boom and bust cycles. From 1963 to 1973, his experience as vice president at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder resulted in little enthusiasm for the job due to slack business following the Interest Equalization Tax. In 1966, he started a fund with $100,000 of the firm's money to experiment with trading strategies. In 1969, Soros set up the Double Eagle hedge fund with $4 million of investors' capital including $250,000 of his own money based in Curaçao.

Continue Browsing

1930 births 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American philosophers Alumni of the London School of Economics Alumni of the University of London American activists American anti-globalization writers American atheists American billionaires American business writers American chief executives of financial services companies American commodities traders

The Black Wednesday Bet

Soros had been building a huge short position in pounds sterling for months leading up to the 16th of September 1992 known as Black Wednesday. The United Kingdom was in an unfavorable position within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism with triple the German inflation rate. By the 16th of September 1992, his fund had sold short more than $10 billion in pounds profiting from the UK government's reluctance to raise interest rates or float its currency. Finally, the UK withdrew from the mechanism devaluing the pound. His profit on the bet was estimated at over $1 billion making him the man who broke the Bank of England. The estimated cost of Black Wednesday to the UK Treasury was £3.4 billion. Stanley Druckenmiller who traded under Soros originally saw the weakness in the pound and stated that Soros's contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position. On the 26th of October 1992, The New York Times quoted Soros saying their total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. They planned to sell more than that while Norman Lamont said he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling. Soros believed they were amused because that amount matched how much they wanted to sell.

Funding Open Societies

In 1984, Soros founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary with a budget of $3 million. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, his funding has played an important role in newly independent countries. A 2017 study found that a grant program awarded funding to over 28,000 scientists in former Soviet republics shortly after the end of the Soviet Union. This program more than doubled publications on the margin and significantly induced scientists to remain in the science sector. His funding of pro-democratic programs in Georgia was considered crucial to the success of the Rose Revolution though Soros said his role has been greatly exaggerated. Alexander Lomaia secretary of the Georgian Security Council oversaw a staff of 50 and a budget of $2.5 million as executive director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation. In June 2009, Soros donated $100 million to Central Europe and Eastern Europe to counter the impact of the Great Recession on poor voluntary groups and non-government organizations. As of 2003, PBS estimated he had given away a total of $4 billion while the OSI says it has spent about $500 million annually in recent years. The Open Society Foundations has active programs in more than 60 countries around the world with total expenditures currently averaging approximately $600 million a year.

Eastern European Dissidents

From 1979, as an advocate of open societies, Soros financially supported dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. He also supported Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union. Some Soros-backed pro-democracy initiatives have been banned in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Ercis Kurtulus head of the Social Transparency Movement Association in Turkey stated that Soros carried out his will in Ukraine and Georgia by using these NGOs. Russia passed a special law prohibiting NGOs from taking money from foreigners in 2006. In 1997, Soros closed his foundation in Belarus after it was fined $3 million by the government for tax and currency violations. The Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko faced wide criticism for efforts to control independent NGOs and suppress civil rights. Since 2012, the Hungarian Fidesz government has labeled George Soros as an enemy of the state disagreeing with his involvement in the 2015 European migrant crisis. The government attacked OSF and tried to revoke the license of Central European University in Budapest though this failed due to significant public outrage. As the 2018 election period started, the government introduced public posters with a photo of Soros creating hostility toward him.

Conspiracy And Threats

Because of his Jewish identity wealth and philanthropy, Soros has been described as the perfect code word for conspiracy theories uniting antisemitism and Islamophobia. One prominent theory claims he is behind the 2015 European migrant crisis or importing migrants to European countries. The Hungarian government spent millions on a poster campaign demonizing Soros using slogans like Soros wants millions of migrants to live in Hungary. On the 22nd of October 2018, a pipe bomb was placed in the mailbox at Soros's home in Katonah New York as part of mail bombing attempts. The package was discovered by a caretaker who removed it and notified authorities before exploding by the FBI. Cesar Sayoc Jr. was arrested in Aventura Florida on suspicion of mailing bombs on the 26th of October 2018. In August 2019, Sayoc was sentenced to 20 years in prison for mailing 16 pipe bombs to 13 victims none of which exploded. Many outspoken enemies saw him as leading an international cabal including other Jews such as the Rothschilds Freemasons and Illuminati according to anthropologist Ivan Kalmar.

Global Geopolitical Views

In May 2014, Soros told CNN that his foundation in Ukraine had played an important part in events since Ukraine became independent from Russia. In January 2015, he said Europe needs to wake up recognizing it is under attack from Russia urging Western countries to expand economic sanctions. He called on the European Union to give $50 billion of bailout money to Ukraine in January 2015. In July 2015, Soros stated that Putin's annexation of Crimea challenged the prevailing world order specifically the European Union. In November 2015, Russia banned the Open Society Foundations stating they posed a threat to constitutional foundations. In May 2022, Soros stated the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be the start of a third world war requiring immediate defeat of Putin. Regarding China, in January 2019, Soros used his annual speech at Davos to label Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of open societies calling China the wealthiest strongest and technologically most advanced authoritarian regime. He urged the United States not to allow Chinese technology companies Huawei and ZTE to dominate the 5G telecommunications market presenting unacceptable security risks for the rest of the world.