George Soros is the notorious leftist billionaire who has spent lavishly to push this country (and others) in a statist direction. His preferred mechanism is quiet subversion: he funds front groups such as Media Matters (which aims at squelching speech by conservatives and libertarians on radio and television) and MoveOn.org (which aims at electing leftists to office). Ironically, he made a big chunk of his money collapsing the currency of a statist government (the UK) in 1992.
Well, he’s back in the news. He has now closed his hedge fund to outside investors. Why? Because of the new “transparency” financial regulations laid down by the SEC under the monstrosity that is Dodd-Frank. The new rules require that by early next year, large hedge funds (i.e., ones with asset bases over $150 million), such as his own, must register. Any large hedge fund will now have to disclose who invests in it, who works for it, whether it faces any conflicts of interest, and what it owns or invests in.
As the deputy chairmen of his fund (and, coincidentally, his sons), Jonathan and Robert Soros, so sadly put it, “An unfortunate consequence of these new circumstances is that we will no longer be able to manage assets for anyone other than a family client as defined under the regulations.” Accordingly, the fund will return all outside (non-family) capital to the investors — to the tune of $750 million.
Other hedge fund managers, such as Carl Icahn and Stanley Druckenmiller, have done the same with their funds. So why single Soros out for attention?
He deserves all the attention we can give him, because his megamillions helped elect the Red Congress that enacted Dodd-Frank, as well as the statist American president who pushed the bill and signed it into law. Soros wanted this country run by neo-socialists. He spent lavishly to ensure that it would be. But now he doesn’t want to have to live up to the spirit of the regulations this regime is inflicting upon the nation.
In short, Soros is a hypocrite. Not to mention a schmuck.
