Talk:George Soros

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This might not be easy to source, but around 1997 (+/-) when the Asian economy was crashing, some Chinese friends told me the Asian papers were blaming the crash on Soros. Apparently GATT, the WTO and free trade agreements required Asian countries who wanted to participate to open their economies to international lending institutions. Businesses were lured to accept credit in dollars, as opposed to borrowing local currency from local lenders. As these waves of loans became due, Soros allegedly manipulated national currency rates, probably by dumping holdings of the national currencies, driving their value down, vis a vis the dollar. Mom and Pop Chu, who earn their living in Korean currency, soon found the wons they saved, intendeding to trade for dollars to repay their loan, were not worth nearly what they expected.

This scenario might loose something in the telling, but the basics were that the markets were opened to international lending and Soros manipulated national money markets at about the same time, leaving a lot of local Asians at a disadvantage. If anyone can flush out details on this, it would be worth documenting on Soros' page. When asked about his impact on Asian markets, (in an Englsh language source) Soros claimed if he did not force Mom and Pop Chu into the global economy, someone else would.