George Soros

HAVE YOU considered "contrarian" investing?"Most stock portfolios don't outperform the S&P 500 index when investors chase winners," says highly successful adviser David Dreman. Mr. Dreman's High Return Equity Fund is ranked No. 1 among all stock income funds, according to Lipper Analytical Services.He adds, "The problem is that the big profits have already been made on many well-known stocks, as attractive as they seem. Many offer little opportunity for further gain."How does the average investor avoid chasing overpriced high fliers?

Happy Hanukkah. Constitutional crisis. Merry Christmas.The nerve of that man, going the last mile to bring peace to the Middle East, just to distract Americans from what really matters.Other people tell Baltimore what to do, but George Soros is putting his money where his mouth is, which is unheard of.Now you know why Larry Young didn't run last election, but he might win the next.Pub Date: 12/16/98

So there was George Soros yesterday, proclaiming the virtues of the open society to a gathering of business people, politicians and hometown boosters in the vast, carpeted ballroom of the Hyatt Hotel. Suddenly, a man in a gray suit -- a paying guest -- separated himself from the audience and walked toward the podium."Soros, you are a murderer," he shouted. "You are a criminal!" He followed with a variety of other epithets before being led away.In the silent aftermath, Soros, apparently unfazed, but maybe not, said faintly: "We are in an open society."

WASHINGTON -- Financier-philanthropist George Soros can shake things up around the world.Wielding vast amounts of money, he can send ripples -- even shock waves -- through global markets and societies. When he announced last week, for instance, that he would raise his investment stake in Russia to $2.5 billion, it was headline news in global financial markets.Five years ago, he gambled $10 billion of his own and others' money against the British pound and won, earning a profit variously reported to be between $1 billion and $2 billion when the pound was devalued and burnishing a reputation that has grown to epic proportions.

Growing up in Altoona, Pa., Diana L. Morris looked beyond the Alleghenies, and a global view began taking shape.Her resulting concern for "the marginalized people of the world" extends beyond the fad phrase, the Pennsylvania burgher background, the cultural anthropology courses at Smith College and the training in law.The director of the new Baltimore office of billionaire philanthropist George Soros remembers the many African refugees she met when she...

George Soros with his $25 million will arrive here just in time to read the new book on narcotics in Baltimore, "The Corner," by David Simon and Edward Burns. Simon's the former Sun reporter who wrote "Homicide -- A Year on the Killing Streets." Burns is a former city police detective. George Soros is a well-intended rich guy who believes his $25 million can change the course of drug traffic here. When he reads "The Corner," he'll be depressed for a month.Consider this:"We can't stop it," Simon and Burns write.

GEORGE SOROS has been a lucky gambler. From humble beginnings as a hawker of souvenirs and cheap jewelry, the Hungarian-born naturalized American is now one of the world's most successful money managers. Speculating in currencies and trading in securities, he has amassed a $5 billion fortune. He has given back in a big way, too, committing $1.5 billion to social projects through foundations set up in 31 countries.In August, Mr. Soros pledged to spend $25 million in Baltimore over the next five years on programs designed to fight drug abuse.

After surviving three wild rides in a row the Dow Jones industrial average was down 171 points Friday, up 110 points Monday and ahead 2.89 points yesterday, after sinking 96 points by lunchtime investors may be puzzled about Wall Street's future. Herewith, several scenarios:IN BEAR MARKETS: "For stocks that go up when the market goes down, stick to companies that serve basic consumer needs ConAgra, McCormick, Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Kimberly Clark, Colgate Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, etc." (Smart Money, March)

WASHINGTON -- The glitziest and wealthiest Americans are not necessarily the most generous. Those would be the ones the public hardly hears about, until now.Slate magazine, Microsoft's venture into online publishing, has listed the names of America's most generous.The scale of their philanthropy is breathtaking: a $5 million gift was the minimum to qualify.The Slate list has some acknowledged flaws. It only counts contributions that are announced publicly; anonymous philanthropy -- the noblest kind -- isn't ranked.

Paris. -- A renewal of war now seems more likely than not in Croatia and Bosnia. Russia, its war with Chechnya in an equally uncertain truce, is controlled by anonymous elements attached to an apparently ill or incapacitated Boris Yeltsin -- who now enjoys the confidence of no more than 8 percent of the Russian public, according to polls.The United States and Western Europe are divided over what policy to follow toward both Yugoslavia and Russia. Washington talks of reimposing sanctions on Serbia and lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia.

Ten Baltimore organizations have received $2.6 million in matching grants from philanthropist George Soros to fund programs intended to ease escalating needs amid the economic downturn, the Open Society Institute's city chapter announced. Soros created the Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation to help people particularly affected by the dismal financial climate. He allocated a total of $5 million for OSI's Baltimore office, the remainder of which will be distributed in 2010. "In this particular time with the economic recession, some populations that are most vulnerable have been very hard hit," said Diana Morris, OSI-Baltimore's director.

George Soros, the Hungarian Holocaust survivor whose fortune is matched only by his philanthropy, in Baltimore and elsewhere around the world, pioneered a kind of self-styled approach to global reform that made him, in the words of the Carnegie Endowment's Morton Abramowitz, "the only private citizen who had his own foreign policy." With no sluggish bureaucracy to answer to, he rose to prominence with stunningly practical bequests delivered in a timely manner. There was his $50 million donation to the besieged citizens of Sarajevo in 1993 that financed a water plant so that women did not need to rely on the public wells where Serbian snipers picked them off with ease.

Maybe George Soros has a $6,000 shower curtain in his mansion in the Hamptons. I don't know for sure - I've never been a houseguest - but somehow I doubt it. And, at this point, it wouldn't matter much if he did. He's been good to my city. Soros is a card-carrying member of the global billionaires' club and, if he was so inclined, he could spend all of his time acquiring more wealth and property, indulging himself, and grossing everyone out. Instead, he's been pushing for social and political progress around the world and, in the midst of all that, he's given millions of dollars to help Baltimore recover from an epoch of drug addiction, violence and poverty.

GEORGE SOROS was never here to stay. That's not how he operates. The Hungarian-born billionaire invests money to attack tough societal problems with the expectation that a city or organization will eventually assume the work - and that's as it should be. Philanthropic dollars are best spent to empower individuals and communities. When Mr. Soros' Open Society Institute chose Baltimore as its first regional city of interest in 1998, this newspaper viewed it as a "positive step." He pledged to spend at least $25 million on some of Baltimore's most intractable problems - drug abuse, struggling schools, youth crime, unemployment.

George Soros - the billionaire philanthropist who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting democracy around the world - visited Baltimore last week to encourage people here to do some giving of their own. Soros, a native of Hungary who came to America in 1956, is the founder of the Open Society Institute, a foundation promoting social and economic reform in more than 60 countries. Seven years ago he picked Baltimore as the site of his only American city project. Since then, the OSI office here has spent $50 million working to improve drug treatment, education and rehabilitation programs.

BALTIMORE Soros asks $20 million match from residents George Soros - a billionaire who has used his riches to fund social and political causes - came to Baltimore yesterday to drum up support for his Open Society Institute, which has worked to combat drug addiction and fund educational programs in the city since 1998. Soros is to meet with Mayor Martin O'Malley at City Hall today to announce a $10 million grant to support the institute's projects in the city for the next five years. He is also expected to challenge residents to come up with another $20 million.

Billionaire financier George Soros - who has spent $50 million to combat urban ills such as drug addiction and juvenile delinquency in Baltimore over the past seven years - is challenging the community to come up with $20 million to continue the work of his Open Society Institute in the city. If the community raises the money, Soros said yesterday, he will ante up $10 million for a total of $30 million that would allow the institute to carry on its work in the city for at least another five years.

As an attorney for the disabled and a wheelchair user himself, Dale Reid knows how hard it can be for a person who can't walk to perform the simple act of voting. For the next year and a half, Reid will be able to concentrate on changing that. As one of 10 "community fellows" to be announced today by the Open Society Institute in Baltimore, he will receive a grant to work full time investigating the accessibility of the city schools, churches and union halls that serve as polling places.

A group of local foundations has raised $15 million to create a venture fund that hopes to marry social goals with financial success - creating more than 1,000 jobs for low- and middle-income people while providing a return that will allow the charities to do still more good. The Baltimore Venture Fund, to be announced at a news conference this morning, plans to invest in eight to 10 established but growth-oriented companies in and around Baltimore over the next four years. The project was spearheaded by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore - a local foundation funded by New York-based billionaire George Soros - and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, each of which contributed $5 million.

Free trade, hailed for the last half of the 20th century as the economic salvation of the world, now threatens to bring the world crashing down around our ears. While trade liberalization has brought enormous economic benefits -- in the United States and many of the world's poorest nations -- its excesses have also bought environmental degradation, political oppression, financial instability and angry resentment of the power of capitalism and Western culture. From Asia to Latin America to the Middle East, there has been a growing sense that globalization of the world's economy is being organized by the United States and other major industrialized countries through the World Trade Organization and other international economic institutions to increase their wealth and exploit poorer lands.