George Soros said the current economic crisis has been the culmination of his life’s work
A hedge fund manager who predicted the global credit crunch has said the financial crisis has been ‘stimulating’ and the culmination of his life’s work.
George Soros, who predicted the global financial crisis twice before, was one of the few people to anticipate and prepare for the current economic collapse.
Mr Soros said his prediction meant he was better able to brace his Quantum investment fund against the gloabal storm.
But other investors failed to take notice of his prediction and his decision to come out of retirement in 2007 to manage the fund made him $US2.9 billion.
And while the financial crisis continued to deepen across the globe, the 78-year-old still managed to make $1.1 billion last year.
‘It is, in a way, the culminating point of my life’s work,’ he told national newspaper The Australian.
Soros is one of 25, top hedge fund managers from across Wall Street who have defied the credit crunch crisis to reap a total of $11.6billion (£7.9bn) last year.
The managers made their profit by trading above the pain in the markets, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha Magazine.
Former maths professor James H. Simons, who has made billions in hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, earned $2.5 billion running computer-driven trading strategies.
The profit comes at a time when the U.S Government is scrutinising Wall Street pay and when hedge funds are facing proposals for new taxes on their gains.
Despite the global financial crisis, the combined pay of the top 25 hedge fund managers still managed to top every year before 2006.
Mr. Paulson said his pay was high, partly because he is the largest investor in his fund and that he did not receive a bonus.
He said the the pensions, endowments and other institutions which invest in his fund do not object to the profits he and his team make.
‘In a year when all their other investments lost money, we’re like an oasis,’ he said in the Times.
‘We have investors who were invested with Madoff, and they can’t thank me enough.’ housing market, came in second earning $2 billion.
The managers made the profit in a year when losses were recorded at two of every three hedge funds and when hedge funds lost an average of 18 percent, according to the New York Times.
Two of the three managers who tied for ninth place, at $250 million, are based in Britain and include David Harding of Winton Capital and Alan Howard of Brevan Howard Asset Management.
Another Brevan Howard employee Christopher Rokos also made the list.
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“Never waste a good crisis” – Hillary Clinton
I wish I was as smart as George Soros.
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This may be an irrelevant comment, and I’m not conventionally religious in any sense–but many of these elites are rather elderly–do they have any thought of what comes after this life–and what judgments they might face?
I don’t believe in hell as such–but I do believe in Justice.
From what I can deduce, their Masonic mystery religious belief is that through initiation they become gods beyond petty moral distinctions like good and evil and so can play at both and never worry about repercussions. Of course, the reason they don’t worry is because their fellow illuminites run the courts, law enforcement, legislatures etc, so they will not face any formal justice. Therefore, they can sit back and enjoy the loot without fear.
Well to be more clear–what do they think happens to them after death? Or just more of the same they think? Or it just doesn’t matter to them?
It probably differs according to their degree of initiation, but I think generally they believe in reincarnation. I am pretty sure they do not believe in the fundamentalist view of heaven and hell. If they reach “perfection”, they will consider themselves as gods with the power to decide what their next incarnation will be, or not. Similar to Theosophy which is actually the popular form of Freemasonry. Masons were behind the New Age from the start, bringing it forth through female masonic aristocrats Blavatsky, Besant etc.
Mmm– I guess I keep having the crazy idea at least one of them will have an “Ebenezer Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas yet to come” near death/deathbed experience, and actually come out and tell the truth. As it is–they all seem happy and content to goosestep off the cliff into the void.
It hasn’t happened yet and it never will happen. They are resolutely elitist and thus have absolutely no conscience about it whatsoever. Besides, the Brotherhood protects them and their reputations by constantly revising “history”. I guess what I am trying to say is they are pure evil with no redeeming human qualities.
Well even if one of them did have a deathbed conversion–no one would ever know it anyway. And it would be too late to help anyone else with it. That far into the system one would be well insulated and handled
The Daily Mail recently published an article with the following fabricated quote, which has spread over the Internet: “’I'm having a very good crisis,’ says Soros as hedge fund managers make billions off recession.” The Mail article was bylined “Mail Foreign Service” and did not cite a source for the alleged quote. In fact the Mail’s made up “quote” was a reworded version of the headline an article published a week earlier in The Australian. The title of that article by Peter Wilson was “George Soros interview: A very good crisis.” The first line of that story is “George Soros is having a very good crisis,” Wilson’s words, not Soros’s. Nowhere does Soros say, “I’m having a very good crisis”.
The Daily Mail story can be found here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1164771/Im-having-good-crisis-says-hedge-fund-manager-1billion-world-plunged-recession.html
A transcript of the original interview with Peter Wilson is available at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25218139-5018057,00.html