George Soros net worth rises to $24 billion dollars

Roger Morgan, the author of a book on hedge fund operator and billionaire George Soros, wonders how greedy Soros has been, and whether the media will bother to take a look. He notes that the hedge fund operator’s net worth rose from about $9 billion before President Obama took office to over $24 billion today.

EU needs to keep its promise with Ukraise

Europe failed on its promises to Ukraine, he said, stressing Ukraine is under extremely strenuous financial and military attack.

 “EU risks losing Ukraine unless urgent steps are taken,” he said. Economic sanctions against Russia economy will not resolve the Ukrainian crisis. Economic sanctions must be added with “positive assistance,” Soros believes.

25 years ago USSR was breaking apart and Europe uniting. Now the EU is breaking apart and Russia consolidating, he said. Soros warned that Russia will step up aggression soon as Putin is struggling for survival.

George Soros scores with sale of OneWest bank

A gang made up of some of Wall Street’s biggest names is set to realize a big score from the sale of OneWest Bank to CIT Group for $3.4 billion.

George Soros was part of the group that together with buyout baron Christopher Flowers and billionaire Michael Dell bought the assets in 2009 of the former IndyMac, one of the nation’s largest bank failures ever, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which had seized its assets. The group paid $1.55 billion for the bank in the teeth of the financial crisis. The deal to sell the bank to CIT Group was announced Tuesday.

The deal is truly a legacy of the financial crisis. IndyMac was the second-biggest bank failure of the financial crisis and the FDIC agreed to share losses on a portfolio of loans. Mnuchin’s group was the only bidder for IndyMac’s assets and the FDIC was desperately trying to recapitalize the crumbling banking sector. Paulson had made his name betting against mortgage securities in the months leading up to the financial crisis. And John Thain, the CEO of CIT Group, was the last CEO of Merrill Lynch, a controversial run that ended with the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. As the bank recovered, some of OneWest’s foreclosure practices came under criticism, but the bank has long said those criticisms were unfounded.

Soros says Europe is weak

Unfortunately Europe is very weak.  It's preoccupied with its internal problems, which are unresolved.  The euro - the euro crisis is no longer a financial crisis, is turning into a political crisis.  And you're going to see it in the elections.  

Goerge Soros on Putin, Russia and Ukraine

Putin will try to destabilize Ukraine.  But the Ukrainians, the large majority of Ukrainians, are determined to be independent of - of Russia. It won't be easy, because Putin has staked his regime on destabilizing Ukraine, because it's a threat to Ru - to his regime in Russia.  If you have freedom, a free media and so on, and a flourishing economy, that would make his regime unsustainable.

George Soros vs Takahiro Mitani

Takahiro Mitani finds himself between George Soros and a hard place.

Mitani is Japan's $1.26 trillion man. The Government Pension Investment Fund that he runs tops Mexico's annual output and dwarfs the Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds that investors are always cooing about. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants the notoriously conservative fund to crank up returns by putting more money in stocks -- with an unlikely assist from billionaire Soros.

In January, the world's most famous short seller chatted with Abe at Davos, urging him to nudge the pension colossus into the 21st century. News of that tete-a-tete is helping Abe to push changes in the fund's management structure and to encourage it to diversify. At the moment, about 60 percent of the fund's holdings are wasting away in the lowest-yielding domestic debt -- Japan's -- anywhere. Getting the fund to move large chunks of that money into stocks could provide a timely boost to Abe's reflation efforts.

It could also be dangerous. When Abe talks about upping stock holdings, I fear what he really means is Japanese stocks. There's great disappointment that last year's Nikkei rally fizzled. When shares roared higher, Abe could plausibly argue that investors were heeding his call to "buy my Abenomics." Now, investors are disappointed that none of the structural reforms pledged 18 months ago have been implemented.

You'd think the prime minister would respond with urgent action to bolster confidence and enliven growth: Next week my government will do X, the week after that Y, and next month Z. Instead, he's focusing on boosting asset prices. The first blow was struck when the Bank of Japan doubled bond purchases in April 2013. The second, it seems, will entail massive share purchases by the government pension fund, which raises more than a few moral-hazard questions.



via http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-international/george-soros-takes-on-japans-126-trillion-man

George Soros group to give $40m

A group back by billionaire George Soros and other millionaires with progressive political slants are charting a course to give out nearly $40 million to various entities that can further their favored policy reforms — in 2014 alone, documents show.

The documents, reported by the Washington Free Beacon, give a glimpse at the oft-guarded membership make-up of the Democracy Alliance, the umbrella network that’s funded by powerful liberals — including the noted progressive-minded Mr. Soros — to win crucial electoral battles.

Within the pages obtained by the Free Beacon is the group’s core hope: to fundraise and distribute a total of $39.3 million to 20 different organizations that can help with upcoming elections.

That means — if fundraising goals are on target — that one of every five dollars of the 20 targeted groups’ total budgets will come from the Democracy Alliance, the news outlet estimated.

The Democracy Alliance’s main function is to connect Democratic donors with activist groups. Counted among past beneficiaries is Media Matters for America; that group, as well as the Center for American Progress are slated to get millions more for this campaign season, the Washington Free Beacon found.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/20/george-soros-backed-group-plots-40m-course-win-201