Soros，who at one stage after the fall of the Berlin Wall was providing more assistance to Russia than the US government，believes in practising what he preaches. His Open Society Institute has been pivotal in helping eastern European countries develop democratic societies and market economies. Soros has the advantage of an insider’s knowledge of the workings of global capitalism，so his criticism is particularly pointed. Last year，the Soros foundation’s network spent nearly half a billion dollars on projects in education，public health and promoting democracy，making it one of the world’s largest private donors.
Soros credits the anti-globalization movement for having made companies more sensitive to their wider responsibilities.“I think（the protesters）have made an important contribution by making people aware of the flaws of the system，”he says.“people on the street had an impact on public opinion and corporations which sell to the public responded to that.”Because the IMF has abandoned billion dollar bailouts for troubled economies，he thinks a repeat of the Asian crisis is unlikely. The fund’s new“tough love”policy—for which Argentina is the guinea pig — has other consequences. The bailouts were a welfare system for Wall Street，with western taxpayers rescuing the banks from the consequences of unwise lending to emerging economies. Now the IMF has drawn a line in the sand，credit to poor countries is drying up.“It has created a new problem—the inadequacy of the flow of capital from centre to the periphery，”he says.
金融大鱷喬治·索羅斯
詹姆士