Bring Us the Head of George Soros

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KUALA LUMPUR: He's already being hounded by the Russian Duma as a CIA spy. Now a group of southeast Asian countries want him prosecuted as a criminal. Has financier and philanthropist George Soros been speculating too much for his own good?

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad thinks he has. He says that Soros was upset by the decision of the Association of South East Asian Nations to admit Burma to their group Burma being one of the less democratic countries in the region and decided to drive their currency values down. ASEAN currencies have been going into tailspin against the dollar of late; Thailand, for one, had to be bailed out by the IMF to the tune of $16.7 billion. Still smarting, the Asian Tigers are screaming for Soros' head on a plate.

So could Soros have been the culprit? It is certainly possible this is, after all, a man who dabbles daily in currency markets to the tune of $1 trillion. But according to TIME Business writer Sribala Subramanian, his Quantum fund merely functions like a de facto Central Bank. Like any good government banker, Soros just goes where the money is following the market, rather than any political motive. Perhaps the Malaysian PM should consider a refresher course in Econ 101.