His own spending on what he calls “civil society” projects is on the rise. “It peaked at $600 million in the mid-90’s,” he said. “I meant to cut back to 300, but I never quite got there.” After stabilizing at about $400 million a year, it will be between $450 million and $500 million this year, Mr. Soros said.

He said he is introducing new projects to promote a common European foreign policy and study the integration of Muslims in 11 European cities.

Mr. Soros commended the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for doing good work while avoiding the hostility he had encountered with his efforts to hold governments accountable for spending. “They have chosen public health, which is like apple pie,” he said.

The United States is now recognizing the errors it had made in Iraq, he said, adding, “To what extent it recognizes the mistake will determine its future.” Mr. Soros said Turkey and Japan were still hurt by a reluctance to admit to dark parts of their history, and contrasted that reluctance to Germany’s rejection of its Nazi-era past.

“America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany,” he said. “We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.”

As for the U.S. 2008 presidential race, Mr. Soros, who gave $18 million to Democratic advocacy groups seeking to defeat President Bush in 2004, said he supported Barack Obama. But he also said he would support Hillary Clinton if she won the Democratic nomination. John McCain, he said, had “compromised far too much with the Bush administration” and was unlikely to win the Republican nomination. And who will win? Mr. Soros said he thinks the leading possibilities are former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

On investing, which made him rich, Mr. Soros said that “hedge funds are the market now,” which makes it much harder to beat the market than when he was a prominent hedge fund manager. He cautioned that the heavy use of debt to leverage up financial transactions — both in hedge funds and in companies bought by private equity funds — could prove damaging when and if the economy stumbles. — Floyd Norris