George Soros - the man who broke the Bank of England
In this article, we will tell you about George Soros a person widely known for his investment savvy and various charity activities.
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1930 in the Jewish family. He barely survived Nazi occupation. False identity papers helped his family to escape Anti-Semite persecution.
After the Second World War, young Soros fled Hungary for England. There he studied philosophy at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper a philosopher who made a massive impact on the gifted youngster. While studying, George was working as a railway porter and nightclub waiter to earn a penny. After graduation, he sailed to New York City where his life in finance started. In the US, he was working for several Wall Street brokerage firms. Years after, in 1973, he set up his own hedge fund with $12 mln from investors. The fund, with Soros at the head, achieved a massive success through its various iterations.
He became extremely famous in 1992 by making a huge bet against the British pound. He gained a billion in just a one night and the fame of the man who broke the Bank of England immediately stuck to him
Soros is also known as the world’s foremost philanthropist. His philanthropy began in 1979 when he transferred whaling sums of money to educate and financially support black South African under apartheid. After the fall of Berlin Wall, he created the Central European University to foster critical thinking among young Europeans. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, his philanthropic activity spread to Africa, Asia. He doled out money for building truly democratic, open and transparent societies in these regions. In the 2000s, he was a staunch backer of same-sex marriage.
His funding supported individuals and various organizations fighting for freedom of expression, justice and equality, transparency, and eradication of corruption. A virtuous billionaire used his fortune to create the Open Society Foundations - the whole network of foundations, partners, projects in more than 100 countries across the globe. And here, we would probably need to stop as the list of Soros’s charity activities is endless.
Soros is widely known for his theory of reflexivity expounded in his book “Alchemy of Finance”. In recent years, Soros mainly supported international refugees and continued funding in a promotion of an 'Open society' across the globe. In 2016, he returned to markets as he believed that greater political uncertainty might provide eminent profits. But this time things didn't go well for Mr. Soros: he lost $1 billion after Trump’s victory.
For many of us, George Soros is best remembered as a speculator who tilted against the Bank of England in 1992. Traders thrust a status of a financial guru upon him. Some people think of him as of a great philanthropist and freedom of expression activists. Soros himself would probably prefer being called a great philosopher. Take your choice, dear traders. For us, he will be a person with vast life experience who deserves universal respect for his achievements.