George Soros

George Soros is without a doubt one of the most important and influential financial minds of our times. The Hungarian billionaire philanthropist is known for, among other things, using his vast fortune to promote Democracy and open societies around the world, and fighting against oppression and censorship. He is a fascinating man and an insightful capitalist. I think you'll really enjoy these interviews.

In 2004 Soros gave $27.5 million dollars of his own money to try and keep George Bush from being re-elected.  In an interview he said that he would gladly have given 100% of his money away if he could have gotten Bush out of office because he believed, "- it would have made a tremendous contribution to mankind". Isn't that the horribly sad truth! 

In a more recent interview with Charlie Rose in April of 2008 he talks about his latest book The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means . He talks about the cycle of financial bubbles and how he thinks that economists and the government need to bring back a healthy balance of free-market enterprise with prudent and responsible regulation, so that the naturally occurring bubbles will never get as big again or cause so much devastation. He gives a clear picture of the greater world financial situation that I found easy to grasp.

What I love about George Soros...besides the fact that he is brilliant, is that I can see that he genuinely cares about people and humanity and, luckily for us, America too for that matter. 'Cause lord knows we wouldn't want to be on the bad side of, 'the man that broke the Bank of England'!

I recommend watching both of these interviews. They give you a very accurate idea of how on the money (pun intended) Soros was in predicting this financial collapse and hopefully how right he is that we can come out of it stronger if we act with better judgement in the near future.

Here is the 2004 interview. As an added bonus there is a second interview with Arianna Huffington in the second half where she talks about the importance of being fearless in today's world. Her message, I think, relates to Soros' financial philosophy quite nicely. To watch both takes about an hour, but these two people are so facinating and wise that I highly recommend it. 

And here is the more recent, April 10th 2008, interview with Goerge Soros. This one is so intersting as well and really gives the full picture of the crisis we are in and what he thinks we need to be doing to get out of it. 

* If you are curious about the books of George Soros and Arianna Huffington check out my Amazon store here.  They are both fantastic writers and I highly recommend reading them.