Soros Says Greenspan Lost Credibility in Helping Bush Campaign

[struggle4progress]

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- George Soros, the billionaire investor, said Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has lost credibility for driving the benchmark U.S. interest rate to a four-decade low and advocating tax cuts that he said caused the U.S. budget deficit to balloon.

Soros, chairman of the New York-based Soros Fund Management LLC, said Greenspan sought to help President George W. Bush win re-election. Soros spent $26.5 million, more than any other individual donor or political action committee to seek to defeat Bush in November's elections.

``Greenspan lost credibility with me when he became too political,'' Soros, 74, said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``He tried to push interest rates further down in order to help the re-election campaign, and also reached out beyond his sphere of competence by advocating tax cuts which then led to the current deficit.''

Soros said he expected the U.S. currency to extend its three-year slide as officials and executives from the U.S., Europe and Asia at Davos blamed the U.S. budget and current account deficits for causing a plunge in the dollar. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said yesterday that he's betting on a further slide in the dollar, calling the deficits ``scary.'' <snip>

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