Soros is a fantastically successful financial speculator. He owns and runs a family of hedge funds for either extremely wealthy individuals or professional financial firms. Over the years he has expressed strongly-held and well thought-out opinions on a variety of subjects. As one of the wealthiest men in the world (estimated net worth of $11 billion, #28 on the Forbes 400) he has been an extremely generous philanthropist.

Soros was never active politically until about 2002, two years into George Bush's first term. In that election campaign he personally contributed over $24 million dollars to hundreds of Democratic organizations. In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush." While unsuccessful in the 2004 election, he was also a major contributor to candidate Barack Obama in the recent election.

While Soros is a major speculator thru his hedge funds and would be capable of "moving markets", the idea that he could be involved in a run on the U.S. Treasury doesn't make much sense to me. Any collapse of the U.S. economy would have major negative effects on his hedge funds and on Soros' investors. I wouldn't deny that Soros might manipulate narrow segments of the financial markets for his own benefit, although not illegally. But I can't imagine that he would take any action that would cause long-term damage to the U.S. economy and financial markets, where he has been so successful for such a long time.

Trying to figure out how a run on the Treasury might have an effect on the Presidential election campaign leaves me at a loss as to how that would effect either candidate, other than negatively. That doesn't alter the fact that some foreign governments might have gotten together to accomplish some unscrupulous objective. But even then, other than an act of "financial terrorism" -- it was only a couple of days after the anniversary of 9/11 -- I can't surmise a reason.