In the midst of the worst financial upheaval since the Great Depression, George Soros explores the origins of the crisis and its implications for the future. Soros, whose breadth of experience in financial markets is unrivalled, places the current crisis in the context of decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom and bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity. "This is a once in lifetime moment", says Soros in characterising the scale of financial distress spreading across Wall Street, the London Stock Exchange, and financial centres around the world.

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC. He was born in Budapest in 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation and fled communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He then settled in the United States, where he accumulated a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. Mr Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he began providing funds to help black students attend Capetown University in apartheid South Africa. He has established a network of philanthropic organisations active in more than 50 countries around the world. These organisations are dedicated to promoting the values of democracy and an open society. The foundation network spends about $400 million annually. Mr Soros is the author of ten books. His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.

Howard Davies is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to his current appointment he was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the UK's single financial regulator since 1998. Howard Davies had previously served for two years as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England after three years as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. From 1987 to 1992 he was Controller of the Audit Commission. From 1982 to 1987 he worked for McKinsey & Company in London and during 1985-1986 was seconded to the Treasury as Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had previously worked at the Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including two years as Private Secretary to the British Ambassador in Paris. His most recent book is Global Financial Regulation: The Essential Guide (Polity Press, 2008)

This event marks the launch of George Soros new book The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means (PublicAffairs, May 2008).

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