A profile of billionaire and philanthropist George Soros and his life, while also debunking much of the fake news about him that appears on racist and other online hate sites.

1. George Soros - a citizen of the world
Dave Shafer
CHJ

2. George Soros – real name is Gyorgy Schwartz –
was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930 to an
affluent non-observant Jewish family

3. Hungarian is a very isolated language in Europe, unrelated to its surroundings.
Its closest language relatives are in Siberia and it is also related to Finnish and
very distantly to Korean, with many Turkish loan words. It is extremely difficult
for English speakers to learn.

4. You almost have to be
born into a language
like Hungarian to be
able to speak it well.
The Basque language
is even more isolated,
with no language
relatives anywhere in
the world.
The French scholar Joseph Scaliger (1540 – 1621) studied the extremely
difficult Basque language for very many years. His conclusion – “The Basques
speak among themselves as if they understood each other. As for me, I don’t
believe it!” But I digress – back to George Soros.

5. George’s parents were his father
Tivador, a lawyer, and Elizabeth,
who owned a silk business. George
has/had an older brother Paul.

6. In 1936 Tivador changed the family name from Schwartz
to Soros, because of increasing anti-Semitism. Tivador was
interested in the artificial language Esperanto, an attempt
to make a universal language for Europe, and was fluent in
it, and George Soros is too – even now.
Esperanto was created in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof and
drew from these different languages to try to make a blend
that would be easy to learn.

7. There are very few
photos I could find
of the young
George.
But there is one
photo that appears
a lot on anti-Semitic
internet sites that
they claim shows
young George in a
Nazi SS uniform.
More on that in next
slide.
Paul and George Soros

8. There are two tiny factual errors in calling this a
photo of George Soros. One is that it does not look
like him and the other is that it is a photo of a
different person, Oskar Groening, a Nazi camp
guard. People who hate Jews do not let facts stand
in the way of getting a message out.
There is a false
narrative about
Soros during the
Holocaust that
is very widely
distributed
among racist
Jew-hating
internet sites.

9. These false allegations will be described next but first there are three sources
which distribute these lies. One source, like Glen Beck and Alex Jones is media
savvy people who have made a career out of conspiracy theories. It is very good
business for them and they do not care too much about the truth. Another
source is gullible people who make no attempt to vet information and just accept
anything that fits their existing prejudices. And the last group are people who
knowingly create and distribute lies from the shadow world that they live in.

10. Eichmann came to Hungary
to set up many Judenrat
throughout the country.
These are councils headed by
local Jewish leaders to
interface with the Nazi
occupiers of the country.
There has always been ethical
controversy over the deal
with the devil that these
positions were for the Jewish
leaders.
Soros was 13 when the
Nazis occupied Hungary in
1944.

11. 1944 deportation of Jews from town
in Hungary to Auschwitz.

12. “The Jewish Council (Judenrat) asked the
little kids to hand out the deportation
notices. I was told to go to the Jewish
Council. And there I was given these small
slips of paper ... I took this piece of paper
to my father. He instantly recognized it.
This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers.
He said, 'You deliver the slips of paper and
tell the people that if they report they will
be deported'."
George Soros tells how his father had
him warn people about deportation
and what the true meaning of that was.
His family survived the war by purchasing documents to say that they were Christians.
Later that year at age 14, Soros posed as the Christian godson of an official of the
collaborationist Hungarian government's Ministry of Agriculture, who himself had a
Jewish wife in hiding. On one occasion, rather than leave the 14-year-old alone, the
official took Soros with him while inventorizing a Jewish family's confiscated estate.

13. Tivadar saved not only his
immediate family but also
many other Hungarian Jews,
and George would later write
that 1944 had been "the
happiest [year] of his life," for
it had given him the
opportunity to witness his
father's heroism, who George
idolized. In 1945, the Soros
family survived the Siege of
Budapest in which Soviet and
German forces fought house-
to-house through the city. Budapest was completely
destroyed by the end of the war

14. It is easy to forget, when visiting Budapest, that the magnificent Parliament
buildings are modern replicas of the originals – all destroyed in the war.

15. 450,000 dead— 70 percent of
Hungary's Jews — by the war’s
end; Eichmann continued the
mass murder even when
Heinrich Himmler ordered it
halted so that evidence of the
Final Solution could be destroyed
as the Red Army poured into the
country in 1945.
Shoes along the Danube in Budapest – iron
replicas of shoes of Jews lined up and shot and
shoved into the river in the last stages of the war.
Some statements by George
Soros are taken out of context
and distorted by internet hate
sites. Any quote attributed to
Soros is automatically
suspect.

16. The cupboard in
Prohászka's Budapest
home that concealed
a secret room where
14 year old Soros hid
for a while. Sort of
like Anne Frank but
only for a few days.
http://expressdigest.com
/revealed-the-hungarian-
schindler-who-hid-
george-soros-from-
gestapo-death-squads/

17. Shortly after George went to live with
Baumbach, the man was assigned to
take inventory on the vast estate of
Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy
aristocrat of Jewish origin. Baumbach
was ordered to go to the Kornfeld
estate and inventory the artworks,
furnishings, and other property. Rather
than leave his “godson” behind in
Budapest for three days, he took the
boy (Soros) with him. As Baumbach itemized the material, George walked around the
grounds and spent time with Kornfeld’s staff. He collaborated with no one and he paid
attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making sure that no
one doubted that he was Sandor Kiss [Soros’s assumed identity]. Among his practical
concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee. (circumcision)

18. “1944 became the formative experience of my life. I was fourteen and I had
boundless admiration for my father. I absorbed and adopted his view of the
world wholesale. As I have often said, the year of German occupation was a
strangely positive experience for me. We were confronted by mortal danger and
people perished all around us, but we managed not only to survive but to
emerge victorious because we were able to help so many others. We were on
the side of the angels and we triumphed against overwhelming odds. What
more can a fourteen-year-old ask for?”
Typical
internet
garbage

19. The irony here is that these
hate groups who express
outrage at the supposed
collaboration of Soros with
the Nazis are themselves far
right and/or neo-Nazis
and/or Jew-haters.
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=OFy_X6IVmkc
From actor
Jon Voight
Watch this

20. In 1947 Soros immigrated to London and
entered the London School of Economics.
He was very taken with the thought of the
philosopher Karl Popper.
Soros has a very interesting personality and seems
to embody completely contradictory strains, but his
philosophy (more on that later) reconciles this
puzzle. One person today who has closely followed
his career said that Soros is like Donald Trump
without the humility.

21. How did
billionaire Soros
become so rich?
What were his
secrets?
We first need
some background.

22. Economist
John Maynard
Keynes
Keynes described an unusual
kind of beauty contest where the
goal of the spectators is to guess
who they think will win, based on
what they think others, not
themselves, will think.

23. Keynes thought that the stock market behaves like
this kind of beauty contest. What matters most is not
what you think is the value of some stock but what you
think other people think its value is, and everyone else
is also making the same calculation.
She won, did you
guess correctly?
What do you
think other
people think
of you?

24. If everyone in the market
was trying to figure out
what everyone else is
thinking and also assumes
that everyone else is also
doing that then some
strange results are quite
possible. A feedback loop
can result.

25. Here is Soros in 1962. He felt that
conventional market theory did not give nearly
enough weight to the fact that people’s
perceptions and irrational biases and emotions
affect how they view the directions of the
markets, apart from actual factual economic
data. That can lead to trends like stock market
bubbles, housing market bubbles, etc. that
increasingly depart from reality-based hard
data. Savvy people like Soros can then move in
and capitalize on these bubbles before they
burst and make fortunes. He was able to judge
when people’s biases and emotions had
outrun reality.

26. Soros had Karl Popper as a
mentor at the London School of
Economics. Popper thought that
the social sciences were very
envious of the prestige and big
successes of the hard sciences. He
called that “Physics Envy”
The words “Economic Science”, Social Science”, “Political Science”, etc. are
inherently false characterizations of these fields, as is their attempts to emulate
physics with mathematical formulations. It is not just that their “data” is usually
“squishy” but that it is affected by what people think of it. Gravity is not affected
by anyone’s opinion of it but consumer confidence numbers are affected and will
change by what people think about those same numbers. Conventional economic
theory has neglected this human irrational element and its feedback loops – such
as declining consumer confidence results in further decline when it is reported.

27. Economists are very belatedly
recognizing that people often
do not act in a rational fashion.
The now very trendy field of
behavioral economics is only
about 10 years old and is trying
to incorporate common sense
observations about human
behavior into theories about
how markets work.

28. It is hard to believe that the Nobel Prize in economics “science” was given to
someone for introducing common sense ideas into economics. It just shows how
very thin the “science” is in this field. And Soros was using these ideas decades
earlier. One of Thayer’s observations is that if you want employees to save you
should have an automatic work enrollment plan that they have to opt out if they
don’t want it, instead of encouraging them to enroll. Not exactly profound.

29. Even today prestigious economics
departments at universities often hew
to the classical theories that people act
in markets in completely rational ways
and that human biases and emotions
play no roll. This completely ignores
what we all know to be true. The main
reason for this willful denial is the
desire to emulate real science and its
successes, where human emotions do
not affect the outcomes of experiments.

30. By accepting the role of human biases and emotions as important market
forces Soros has a big advantage over investors who are blind to these very
fundamental facts. He knows where he is going and they don’t.

31. A classic “death spiral” may
be based on completely
rational behavior by the
consumers and suppliers.

32. Other “death spirals” can occur that are largely driven by emotion. When a stock
market bubble bursts everyone heads for the exit door at the same time. Dropping
prices cause panic and further dumping of stocks which causes more panic which
causes increased stock dumping which causes… etc. Public crowds at concerts, sports
arenas, etc. can panic due to real or imagined events and stampede instead of orderly
leaving the area. More panic increases the danger causing more panic, etc.
George Soros
takes advantage
of irrational
panic in stock
markets to
make money.

33. Alan Greenspan famously warned about
the dangers of irrational exuberance in the
markets. There is also a danger in irrational
doom and gloom. Soros tries to spot these
irrational trends and make rational choices
and bets that exploit them.

34. Soros had gotten a Bachelor’s and Master’s
degree in philosophy at the London School
of Economics. In 1956, Soros arrived in the
US invited by his father’s friend in London,
who had a small brokerage firm on Wall
Street. In America, George Soros began to
invest his friends and acquaintances’ money,
as well as remnants of his own modest
salary, and after some time he started
having successes.
One day he set a task to make half a million dollars in investments. This should
be enough for him to stop working and devote all his time to philosophy, which
he regarded as his sole and true vocation. But as Soros’s revenues grew, very far
surpassing his own expectations, he set himself a new very different goal -
enjoying risky gambles and his increasing talent as an investor.

35. Soros and Popper. Soros has been vilified
by some for causing market bubbles to burst,
with enormous and disastrous economic
consequences. Whole countries have been
affected – usually adversely – by huge risky
bets that Soros has made.
In the most famous example he bet in 1992 some
billions of dollars that the Bank of England was going to
have to devalue the pound due to an unsustainable
economic situation. When the devaluation did happen
Soros made 1 billion dollars profit in one day. One day!

36. Soros maintains that he takes advantage of unstable
situations (in his opinion) which others do not see that
way and that if he did nothing the unstable situation
would eventually collapse. So why not profit from that
collapse and even nudge it along to collapse faster by
some of his maneuvers.
His critics say this often amounts to unethical and
immoral actions. Soros himself calls his business actions
amoral. Imagine that you know a housing bubble will pop
very soon while most others think it may pop some day
but surely not right now. What if you can force the issue
just before it was going to happen anyway by heavily
publicizing the market’s weakness and cause the pop to
happen even sooner, while heavily betting on the
outcome. Is that unethical? What do you think?

37. Soros is an enemy of
autocratic regimes
around the world
and far right groups
within countries. He
is hated by many for
“meddling” in the
affairs of others to
try to promote
democracy and free
and open societies.
Plus he is Jewish and
that taps into classic
conspiracy theories.

38. Conspiracies 101 is all about
how Soros, the puppet
master, controls Obama and
the Pope. But he is also, of
course, best buddies with
those agents of the devil –
the Rothschilds.

39. Far-right firebrand Dinesh D’Sousa
tweets a fake photo.
Original photo and altered photo

40. Soros bet the markets would
crash when Trump was elected.
That mistake cost him $$$$$ in a
few weeks following the election.
But hey, pin money to Soros.
Soros is/was a heavy
contributor of money
to Democratic
campaigns. He is
kind of the anti-
Sheldon Adelson.

41. Like many fake internet
posts like this it gives a
supposed news media source
to seem to give it authenticity.
But that German magazine
had no such interview with
Soros on that date or any
other date. And this fake
quote first appeared two
years after the fake non-
existent interview.Once a false item like this is out on the
internet it acquires a life of its own and is
picked up and widely circulated on hate sites.

43. There was a currency crisis in Asia in
the late 1990s and Soros was
accused of deliberately causing it.
True or not, Soros is usually a major
player in any financial crisis
anywhere in the world, as that is
how he makes money. He may have
been punishing the government of
Malaysia for supporting the extreme
autocratic government of Myanmar.
Soros has enormous financial power
that can affect whole countries through
his market maneuvers.

44. For years Mr. Soros largely avoided Israel-related philanthropy, but he became
involved in 2008 when he contributed to J Street, a moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace
lobbying group based in Washington, after it was founded. Through his Open Society
Foundations, Mr. Soros also contributes to the Israeli human rights organization
B’Tselem and the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence, which have been
subjected to a growing delegitimization campaign by the Israeli government.
For Mr. Netanyahu, ideally there would
be no daylight between Jewish identity and
Israeli identity. Mr. Soros represents an
obstacle to this project because he is such
a high-profile figure among the
communities of the Jewish diaspora that
do not necessarily have a strong
identification with Israel — or worse, that
are critical of it.
Netanyahu hates George Soros

45. Soros is the all
purpose villain who can
be called up to tarnish
any critical groups

46. Hungary’s new autocratic leader hates
Soros and the open society he
promotes so he tried to close the Soros
funded Central European University.
Despite massive protests he did
manage to close it down and further
suppress free speech in Hungary.

47. Soros created the
Open Society
Foundations

48. With an endowment of some $18 billion, the Foundations are the world’s
third largest philanthropic fund, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and the United Kingdom’s Welcome Trust.

50. Typical OSF
programs

51. ACLU Awarded $50 Million by Open Society
Foundations to End Mass Incarceration
The campaign seeks to reform criminal justice policies that have increased
incarceration rates dramatically during a period of declining crime –and
exacerbated racial disparities. The nation's adult jail and prison population
numbers over 2.2 million with one in 100 adults behind bars, the highest
incarceration rate in the world.
When in doubt about any rumor, urban
legend, or news story. Check it out on
Snopes.com – the ultimate fact checker site.
There is sooo much fake Soros stuff online.

52. Here is a fake story about
Snopes.com by people who hate
the fact checking that Snopes does.
Neither of the two people
(supposedly just one person)
shown with Soros is the Snopes
CEO and their actual identities has
been tracked down by Snopes. In
addition the photos have been
faked to show Soros with this fake
Snopes CEO. Finally the quote
given from FactCheck.org is
completely fake. Yikes!

53. Billionaire Soros has been
married three times and
divorced twice. The last two
marriages were to quite
young women. I wonder
what they $$ee in him?

54. Soros home in Katonah – a good starter house

55. Even if you completely support the great
philanthropic goals of Soros and his Open
Society Foundations, as well as the actions
of the Bill and Linda Gates foundation
some still have a problem with just these
very few people deciding how to improve
life on earth with their vast financial
resources.