The Wall Street Journal has reported that leftist billionaire and Democratic mega-donor George Soros, a convicted insider trader, has stepped back into trading personally in recent months, betting big on his view that Europe is underestimating the cost of the current illegal immigration crisis from Muslim-majority countries – at the same time he calls for increasing that cost and acknowledges groups he underwrites are pushing to worsen that crisis, the worst since World War II.
In October 2015, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Soros’s native Hungary charged that the Muslim-majority “invasion is driven, on the one hand, by people smugglers, and on the other by [human rights] activists who support everything that weakens the nation-state…perhaps best represented by George Soros,” according to a report in Bloomberg, “Orban Accuses Soros of Stoking Refugee Wave to Weaken Europe.”
Orbán stressed, “His name is perhaps the strongest example of those who support anything that weakens nation states, they support everything that changes the traditional European lifestyle.”
In response, Mr. Soros issued an email statement to Bloomberg Business saying his groups viewed “protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
Granting that Mr. Soros views “national borders as the obstacle,” is the protection of the overwhelmingly Muslim refugees the objective?
Mr. Soros admits that “Realistically, it will be difficult for Europe to absorb more than one million migrants,” and his view is further that:
[EU] officials have not recognized the full cost of dealing with the migration issue—the crisis. And they have a blind spot: We estimate that the cost exceeds 10 billion euros a year, and they are nowhere near this figure officially. And one of the reasons why they don’t recognize this is because they don’t know where they would find the money.
Mr. Soros states flatly that in part as a result, “The EU is on the verge of collapse,” and that “the very survival of the EU is at risk.”
Yet virtually simultaneously, Soros insists that Europe “has to accept at least a million” of the Muslim-majority illegal immigrants a year – and “cover the cost of housing health care and education for each refugee for the first two years.”
In another interview, Mr. Soros has further admitted that “It would be impossible for the EU to finance this expenditure out of its current budget,” and so advocates their taking on additional debt instead.
Worse, he actually calls for making it easier for the illegals to make it into Europe, arguing that “if asylum-seekers have a reasonable chance of ultimately reaching Europe, they are far more likely to stay where they are.”
Read that again.
Convinced?
So far, Mr. Soros’s bets have had mixed results. According to the Journal, Soros Fund Management, LLC, has “bought over 19 million shares of Barrick Gold Corp.,” a position that “has gained more than $90 million since the end of the first quarter.” The firm also “bought a million shares of miner Silver Wheaton Corp. in the first quarter, a position that has increased 28% so far in the second quarter.”
In addition, the Journal reports, Soros is betting against America, adopting “bearish derivative positions that serve as wagers against U.S. stocks.” It is not clear at what point in the first quarter the firm took those positions; the S&P 500 was up 3% on the quarter, so Soros may be in the red so far, according to the Journal report. On May 16, Soros’ fund disclosed that it had doubled its bet against American stocks.
The reports come in the wake of an exposė of Soros-funded efforts to keep refugees flowing into the U.S., as well as disclosures last year that Soros has poured more than $30 million into organizations that pitched in on the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the wake of the Ferguson riots, and as violence arguably driven by Soros-funded front groups escalates as the Trump campaign gains steam.
Further, as the 2016 election approaches, Soros, a longtime supporter of gun control, also sold off stakes in two ammunition makers, at the same time he poured $8 million into a super-PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, who is campaigning on a gun control agenda.
Directly in the middle of all this activity, on February 11, 2016, a journalist interviewing Mr. Soros began a question, “You have retired from running your hedge fund and devote all your energies to your foundation.” Mr. Soros failed to correct that misimpression, going on to note, “In danger lies opportunity. It’s always darkest before dawn.”
For context, the Journal notes that, “The last time Mr. Soros became closely involved in his firm’s trading: 2007, when he became worried about housing and placed bearish wagers over two years that netted more than $1 billion of gains.” The moves followed his backing of groups like the Orwellian Center for Responsible Lending, which critics charged helped drive the housing crisis by directly running up $5 billion in subprime lending, first making its primary backers even more wealthy, then when the bust came making those who supported the group and bet against the housing market, including Soros, a fortune.
Finally, just for the record, Mr. Soros was convicted of insider trading in 2002 in France for front-running the Socialist-led government’s move to retake control of a major bank.
As the French would (actually, did) say: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Christopher C. Hull, Ph.D., the former chief of staff for Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), is the president and campaign manager of Issue Management, Inc., a D.C.-based public affairs firm. One of his clients is a national security think tank dedicated to Ronald Reagan’s vision of peace through strength.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/09/soros-shorts-europe-america/