OPINION:
George Soros, like the rest of the international financial establishment, is mightily upset at the nerve of the British voter, who insists on having his say about his country and how it should be governed. Mr. Soros predicts dire economic consequences as the price of democracy, and professes to be thoroughly saddened by the prospect.
Mr. Soros learned to shed tears from a friendly crocodile. This is the same George Soros who single-handedly all but destroyed the British pound sterling in the 1990s, and made a billion dollars or so in doing it. It’s easy to see why Hillary Clinton admires him so. He covets other people’s money as much as she does.
The British no doubt find his present concerns touching, though a tad ironic. Mr. Soros, a serious Socialist, has made the billions he spends to subsidize left-wing causes in Europe and the United States largely from speculative currency manipulation, usually at considerable cost to the people whose currencies he manipulates. His assault on the British pound in 1992 won him the “honor,” such as it was, as “the man who broke the bank of England.” For an encore he brought down the currency of Malaysia, and the government of Thailand labeled him an “economic war criminal.”
In those days Mr. Soros headed something called the Quantum Fund, which he had founded in 1970, and that was before most people even knew there was such an animal. Bernie Sanders hadn’t yet called such funds evil. Mr. Soros bet correctly that by tying the pound to the German mark, John Major, who had succeeded Margaret Thatcher as British prime minister, would in turn tie Britain’s hands in a way that would allow Mr. Soros and his fellow vultures to profit by “shorting” the pound during the decade’s economic downturn. The British government would have to spend billions to shore it up or bail out of the continental system.
Mrs. Thatcher had opposed tying the pound to continental currencies, but Mr. Major did it, anyway, with disastrous consequences for the British taxpayer. The celebrated Socialist swashbuckler and his buddies made a pile. A very big pile.
All of this took place before the European Union was yet to emerge, and before the advent of the euro as the European Union’s preferred common currency. As an interim step, nations within Europe agreed to peg their currencies to the German mark, and vowed that regardless of the needs of their people they would keep it there. When it came clear that the pound was overvalued, the British government, in an attempt to keep its promises, began pumping billions into the currency in an unsuccessful attempt to stabilize it. Mr. Soros finally realized this wouldn’t work, and bet everything he and his investors had on it not working. The date that lives in British infamy, Sept. 1, 1992, everything collapsed and is remembered in Britain as Black Wednesday. For Mr. Soros it was Gold Wednesday because it made him one of the richest men in the world.
George Soros is upset now that by voting to leave the EU Britain has upset the very system he almost destroyed in getting rich. He squeezes out tears of pity for the poor British who he says will pay dearly for leaving the EU. British workers who shoulder the debt incurred when Mr. Soros came close to bankrupting their country can be forgiven if they discount the man’s compassion. His tears of pity are not persuasive. Even the crocodile that taught him to cry them is not impressed.
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