http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_SorosBiography
[edit] Family
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of the Esperantist writer Tivadar Soros. Tivadar (also known as Teodoro) was a Hungarian Jew, who was a prisoner of war during and after World War I and eventually escaped from Russia to rejoin his family in Budapest.[5][6]
The family changed its name in 1936 from Schwartz to Soros, in response to growing anti-semitism with the rise of Fascism. Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because it has a meaning. Although the specific meaning is left unstated in Kaufmann's biography, in Hungarian, soros means "next in line, or designated successor", and in Esperanto, it means "will soar".[7] His son George was taught to speak Esperanto from birth and thus is one of the rare native Esperanto speakers. George Soros later said that he grew up in a Jewish home, and that his parents were cautious with their religious roots.[8]
George Soros has been married and divorced twice, to Annaliese Witschak, and to Susan Weber Soros. He has five children: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan (with his first wife, Annaliese); Alexander, Gregory (with his second wife, Susan). His elder brother, Paul Soros, a private investor and philanthropist, is a retired engineer, who headed Soros Associates, an international engineering firm based in New York, and established the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for Young Americans[9][10]. George Soros' nephew Peter Soros, a son of Paul Soros, is married to the former Flora Fraser, a daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser and the late Sir Hugh Fraser, and a stepdaughter of the late 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter.[11]
[edit] Native Hungary, and move to England
Soros was thirteen years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany took military control over Hungary[12]. For two days, Soros worked for the Jewish Council[5], which had been established during the Nazi occupation of Hungary to forcibly carry out Nazi and Hungarian government anti-Jewish measures. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:
The Jewish Council 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...It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 a.m....And I was given this list of names. 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.[13]
To avoid his son's being apprehended by the Nazis, Soros's father paid a Ministry of Agriculture employee to have Soros spend the summer of 1944 living with him and posing as the godson. Young Soros had to hide his Jewishness even as the official was overseeing the confiscation of Jewish property.[14]
In the following year, Soros survived the battle of Budapest in which Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city. Soros first traded currencies during the Hungarian hyperinflation of 1945–1946.
Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, Soros funded himself by taking jobs as a railway porter and a waiter at Quaglino's restaurant where he was told that with hard work he might one day become head waiter. He eventually secured an entry-level position with London merchant bank Singer & Friedlander.
[edit] Move to the United States
In 1956 he moved to New York City, where he worked as an arbitrage trader with F. M. Mayer from 1956 to 1959 and as an analyst with Wertheim and Company from 1959 to 1963. Throughout this time, Soros developed a philosophy of "reflexivity" based on the ideas of Karl Popper. Reflexivity, as used by Soros, is the belief that the action of beholding the valuation of any market by its participants, affects said valuation of the market in a procyclical 'virtuous or vicious' circle.[15]
Soros realized, however, that he would not make any money from the concept of reflexivity until he went into investing on his own. He began to investigate how to deal in investments. From 1963 to 1973 he worked at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, where he attained the position of vice-president. Soros finally concluded that he was a better investor than he was a philosopher or an executive. In 1967 he persuaded the company to set up an offshore investment fund, First Eagle, for him to run; in 1969 the company founded a second fund for Soros, the Double Eagle hedge fund.[15]
When investment regulations restricted his ability to run the funds as he wished, he quit his position in 1973 and established a private investment company that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund. He has stated that his intent was to earn enough money on Wall Street to support himself as an author and philosopher - he calculated that $500,000 after five years would be possible and adequate.
He is also a former member of the Carlyle Group.[15]
[edit]
Read the whole article, he has already been central to the over through of the Georgian government. He is the power behind the UN anti gun activities.
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