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Soros On Europe: Iceberg Dead Ahead
George Soros has been a busy man the last few days. Appearing at the INET Conference a number of times and penning detailed articles for the FT (and here at Project Syndicate) describing the terrible situation in which Europe finds itself - and furthermore offering a potential solution. Critically, he opines, the European crisis is complex since it is a vicious circle of competing crises: sovereign debt, balance of payments, banking, competitiveness, and structurally defective non-optimal currency union. The fact is 'we are very far from equilibrium...of the Maastricht criteria' with his very clear insight that the massive gap, or cognitive dissonance, between the 'official authorities' hope and the outside world who see how abnormal the situation is, is troublesome at best. Analogizing the periphery countries as third-world countries that are heavily indebted in a foreign currency (that they cannot print), his initial conclusion ends with the blunt statement that "the euro has really broken down" and the ensuing discussion of just what this means from both an economic and socially devastating perspective: the destruction of the common market and the European Union and how this will end in acrimonious recriminations with worse conflicts between European states than before.
However, he offers some hope and a potential solution to the fact that these nations have implicitly handed their 'seignorage rights' to the ECB, in the potential for a balance between fiscal austerity and deflation (or at minimum new rules that would remove to a greater extent the vicious circle of the fiscal compact as deflationary debt trap). The punchline being the creation of an SPV that 'owns the ECB's seignorage rights - estimated to be worth $2-3 trillion' that could explicitly be used to acquire bonds without violating the Lisbon Treaty. The sad truth of this admittedly smart financial engineering (pretend austerity and optically no money printing when exactly that is occurring) is that the Bundesbank will never agree to it (as implicitly it ends up at the foot of the German taxpayer to a greater or lesser extent) even though, as he concludes, the future of the Euro is a political one and thus "beyond the Bundesbank's competence to decide." Just as we noted back in December and reiterated here as likely given TARGET-2 imbalances (also confirmed by Deutsche Bank), Soros points out that the Bundesbank has "started taking measures to limit the losses that it would sustain in case of a
breakup." and this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that markets are reflecting.
A must-watch harsh reality check on Europe and a man trying to find answers when the authorities remain blind to the endgame...
Project Syndicate: Reversing Europe’s Renationalization
George Soros
NEW YORK – Far from abating, the euro crisis has taken a turn for the worse in recent months. The European Central Bank managed to relieve an incipient credit crunch through its long-term refinancing operation (LTRO)...
The fundamental problems have not been resolved; indeed, the gap between creditor and debtor countries continues to widen. The crisis has entered what may be a less volatile but potentially more lethal phase.
At the onset of the crisis, the eurozone’s breakup was inconceivable...
If [ECB encumbrance] continues for a few more years, a eurozone breakup would become possible without a meltdown – the omelet could be unscrambled – but it would leave the creditor countries’ central banks holding large, difficult-to-enforce claims against the debtor countries’ central banks.
The Bundesbank has become aware of the danger. It is now engaged in a campaign against the indefinite expansion of the money supply, and it has started taking measures to limit the losses that it would sustain in case of a breakup. This is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: once the Bundesbank starts guarding against a breakup, everybody will have to do the same. Markets are beginning to reflect this.
The Bundesbank is also tightening credit at home. This would be the right policy if Germany was a freestanding country, but the eurozone’s heavily indebted member countries badly need stronger demand from Germany to avoid recession. Without it, the eurozone’s “fiscal compact,” agreed last December, cannot possibly work. The heavily indebted countries will either fail to implement the necessary measures, or, if they do, they will fail to meet their targets, as collapsing growth drives down budget revenues. Either way, debt ratios will rise, and the competitiveness gap with Germany will widen.
Whether or not the euro endures, Europe faces a long period of economic stagnation or worse. Other countries have gone through similar experiences. Latin American countries suffered a lost decade after 1982, and Japan has been stagnating for a quarter-century; both have survived. But the European Union is not a country, and it is unlikely to survive. The deflationary debt trap is threatening to destroy a still-incomplete political union.
The only way to escape the trap is to recognize that current policies are counterproductive and change course. I cannot propose a cut-and-dried plan, but three observations stand out. First, the rules governing the eurozone have failed and need to be radically revised. Defending a status quo that is unworkable only makes matters worse. Second, the current situation is highly anomalous, and some exceptional measures are needed to restore normalcy. Finally, the new rules must allow for financial markets’ inherent instability.
...
Most importantly, some extraordinary measures need to be invented to bring conditions back to normal. The EU’s fiscal charter compels member states annually to reduce their public debt by one-twentieth of the amount by which it exceeds 60% of GDP. I propose that member states jointly reward good behavior by taking over that obligation.
The member states have transferred their seignorage rights to the ECB, and the ECB is currently earning about €25 billion ($32.7 billion) annually. The seignorage rights have been estimated by Willem Buiter of Citibank and Huw Pill of Goldman Sachs, working independently, to be worth between €2-3 trillion, because they will yield more as the economy grows and interest rates return to normal. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) owning the rights could use the ECB to finance the cost of acquiring the bonds without violating Article 123 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Should a country violate the fiscal compact, it would wholly or partly forfeit its reward and be obliged to pay interest on the debt owned by the SPV. That would impose tough fiscal discipline, indeed.
By rewarding good behavior, the fiscal compact would no longer constitute a deflationary debt trap, and the outlook would radically improve. In addition, to narrow the competitiveness gap, all members should be able to refinance their existing debt at the same interest rate. But that would require greater fiscal integration, so it would have to be phased in gradually.
The Bundesbank will never accept these proposals, but the European authorities ought to take them seriously. The future of Europe is a political issue, and thus is beyond the Bundesbank’s competence to decide.
And incidentally speaking of the Bundesbank, recall back in December Zero Hedge's view on the endgame via "Has The Imploding European Shadow Banking System Forced The Bundesbank To Prepare For Plan B?" where we said, focusing on the TARGET2 issue :
the Bundesbank, if disambiguated from the ECB, where it currently is accountable for funding a major portion of deficit nations' funding deficiency, would regain its status as the world highest quality monetary institution. And going back to the beginning, it is the Bundesbank which is effectively depleting "good money" in exchange for "bad" either in the form of undervalued collateral through the repo markets, or soon to be devalued fiat.
Here one has to keep in mind the primary prerogative of the Buba - keep inflation low. If that means detaching from a failing currency, or halting asset-liability matching in which it hands out good money in exchange for worthless assets, so be it.
Which is why another interpretation of the ECB's proposal is not to bring the ECB as a lender of only resort closer to the peripheral, deficit nations, but to commence proceedings for severing the umbilical cord of the Bundesbank with a Eurozone which is doomed in all but the most optimistic eyes. Bringing us to our question: for anyone wondering what the future of the Eurozone is, should they merely observe what steps the German central bank is stealthily starting to take. Because if indeed the Buba wants to have as little as possible with Europe, what does that mean for the EUR, and for Europe itself?
Four months later, here comes Deutsche Bank's Thomas Mayer with "Why the Buba Wants To Exit." Excerpts (full link):
Why the Buba wants to exit
Recent data illustrate the above analysis. For the last year, more than three quarters of ECB loans have gone to banks in Southern European countries and Ireland. More recently, the liberal use of long-term ECB loans in France and Germany has temporarily reduced the share of the GIIPS countries in ECB lending. At the same time, the positions of national central banks in the euro area’s interbank payment system Target 2 show that these loans have helped to fund cumulated balance-of-payments deficits of the non triple-A rated countries versus the triple-A rated countries (Germany, Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg). The latter country group has lent the former so far more than EUR900bn (Table 1). As long as the liberal supply of ECB funds to the countries with balance-of-payments deficits continues, the Target positions are likely to increase further. Until recently, liquidity flowing from the balance-of-payments deficit countries to surplus countries tended to be re-deposited at the national central banks of the latter. However, as Chart 2 for the case of Germany shows, liquidity has started to flow out into the non-financial sector (with the German banking sector turning again into a net debtor to the Bundesbank).
The case for exiting
By mid-year governments are scheduled to have completed the new EMU governance structure, including a new treaty on fiscal policy and a permanent crisis management mechanism. According to the governments, this is it. No further measures are presently being contemplated. Against this background, the recent suggestion by the President of the Bundesbank that the ECB begin a gradual exit from its non-standard measures and thus to raise pressure for balance sheet adjustment seems only logical. As of mid-year it is up to governments to restructure or unwind insolvent banks and to the permanent crisis management mechanism to provide adjustment funding to governments and banks, when needed. The present dual and contradictory support scheme—conditional lending under IMF/EU adjustment programmes and unconditional, unlimited lending under the ECB’s special refi operations—ought to be reconciled and merged into a unified support scheme.
It is, of course, possible that the new EMU architecture will not be able to deal with the remaining adjustment challenges. Even after its recent extension to some EUR800bn, the combined resources of the EFSF / ESM are unlikely to be sufficient to fund Italy or Spain in case markets shut down for these countries. But this would require further repair of the EMU architecture and could not justify an open-ended involvement of the ECB in propping up insolvent banks or governments. As we have argued before, we would favour the transformation of the ESM into a true European Monetary Fund with the mandate to implement and fund adjustment programmes for countries, facilitate debt restructuring for insolvent countries, and deal with systemically relevant banking sector problems. As part of a unified support scheme, this EMF would have access to ECB credit as a measure of last resort to deal with systemically risky liquidity crunches, whereby the final decision to extend credit would lie with the ECB.
Conclusions
The ECB’s non-standard monetary policy measures were taken to deal with problems in the financial sector and not to extend monetary policy easing beyond interest rate cuts, as was the case in the US and UK. Hence, these measures should logically only be continued as long as they promote efficient adjustment in the financial sector. The present regime of fixed rate, full allocation refinancing operations tends to ease the adjustment burden in the financial sector of countries with internal and external deficits and to shift the costs of rebalancing the balance of payments of EMU member countries to balance of payments surplus countries. Relative prices are adjusted by pushing prices in the surplus countries up without exerting downward pressure on prices in the deficit countries. With a new fiscal pact and permanent crisis management mechanism in place as of the middle of this year, it is now up to governments to engineer a more symmetrical adjustment. Should the new EMU architecture prove insufficient, governments should take the necessary additional steps and refrain from enlisting the ECB in making up for these deficiencies, in our view.
Which, alas won't happen, and the Bundesbank will be even more on the hook. Just as we further elaborated in "Explaining The European €2.5 Trillion Liquidity Catch 22 Closed Loop." So yeah: tin foil hat conspiracy and all that jazz.
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I hope that ZH allows me to post a copy of some comments I posted a few minutes ago:
I think that Germany should already have left the eurozone and should have let the remaining countries order ECB to print money and lend it to member countries at a 2 % interest rate. That would have solved the problem, at least for a while.
I don´t think that the Germans would have to suffer from too much appreciation of a reintroduced D-mark. If they print enough too, the D-mark wouldn´t have to appreciate too much. Why not print money, lend it to a German pension fund controlled by the government which buys forest land, mines etc abroad?
The reason why I doubt that Germany will leave the eurozone is that European politicians want a more closely integrated Europe for ideological reasons. My impression is that they are willing to let their electorate pay a very high price for their ideological ideas. That happened in Sweden in the early 1990s when Swedish politicians wanted people to say yes to EU membership. For that reason they created economic chaos in order to be able to say to people that "we need EU membership in order to save the economy". So they pegged the Swedish krona to the ecu (the forerunner to the euro) and tried to defend the exchange rate with a 500 % interest rate. The cost for doing that has been estimated to almost $80 billion. In a country with 300 million people, like the US, rather than 9 million people that equals about $2500 billion.
If there will be an economic collapse, I don´t think that the general public will blame mainstream politicians. They did not do that in Sweden. I think that the politicians will blame the market and speculators and that the electorate will buy that. Even conservative and liberal-conservative politicians which usually are close friends of the big banks and big business will probably do that. Our conservative prime minister Carl Bildt did that (this clown is now our minister of foreign affairs). And the electorate bought his explanation.
Carl Bildt: attended Bilderberg 11 times - from 1992-2011 (Sweden joined the EU in 1994).
George Soros: attended Bilderberg 5 times - from 1990-2002 (took down the Pound Sterling in 1992).
When Soros says: "beyond the Bundesbank's competence to decide", he means "these things are agreed by political hacks and bankster tools in secret Bilderberg steering group meetings". Interestingly, there have been no Bundesbank representatives at Bilderberg since 1998.
Exactly. Good observation. Exchange rates are a convenient fiction when there is no underlying basis to them (eg. gold).
I often wonder what the Northern Europen countries would be like if they did not have the Euro. The Northern European countries had strong currencies before entering the Euro. I do not think their economies would be as strong if they continued to use their currencies. The problem is the EU is not a true fiscal union and that will never happen. The Northern European countries also allowed this loose money and credit to happen. They made these easy loans and do not want to balance the countries that are in trouble nor take any losses on their bad loans. They cannot have it both ways.
Like I said, Germany could see to that the D-mark would not appreciate too much by printing money.
I also doubt that the Netherlands would benefit from staying in the eurozone.
My impression is also that French banks have lent more money per capita to the PIIGS countries than German banks.
I think that it would be great for both parties if Germany would be entitled to leave the eurozone. The remaining euro countries can print all the money they want and lend it to the PIIGS countries at near 0 % interest rate. Hopefully, they will stop doing that once they get control of their debt. But I´m not 100 % sure that will happen. I also understand if other countries don´t want to print money indefinitely in order to bail out countries which don´t think that it´s their duty to cut spending and increase taxes but rather think that others should pay their bills indefinitely. If Germany agrees to let ECB print money and lend it to the PIIGS countries at a near 0 % interest rate I think that there is a substantial risk that this will never end. Furthermore, some countries (those countries which are bailed out with 0 % interest rate) reap all the benefits while other countries just face the risk of hyperinflation in the end.
If the ECB doesn´t cut the interest the PIIGS countries are paying it will be very hard to both stop the growing debt and avoid a deep recession. On the other hand they can´t change the ECB charter so that the ECB can print in the same way as the Fed does and lend money at near 0 % interest rate to various EU governments. Because if they do that, it will probably never end.
I think that the most reasonable solution is that those countries who want a central bank that prints almost free money indefinitely stay in the eurozone while the others are entitled to leave. EU members which are not eurozone members can help by paying for all their oil imports in euros, at least for a while. That will enable the ECB to print more without causing hyperinflation.
i-dog:
My comments:
I don´t think that Bilderberg meetings and similar activities are the cause of the problem. But perhaps they to some extent reflect an attitude which means that the ruling élite should decide politics for the masses without really asking them what they think but rather manipulate the masses so that they think and do what the ruling élite think they should think and do.
my God, all he's doing is affirming what everybody knows. forget his personal politics for the moment, he's telling you, and more importantly the socialist in Europe, that the EU is dying. and they have no solution at hand that won't take 2 years of bureaucratic wrangling to accomplish in Brussells. there is no greater currency trader alive today so they'd better believe him and start to take it down before the market does it in the middle of the night some night.
maybe, just maybe everything you say is true.....but Soros has an angle, a way to profit by whatever calamity that occurs...he is not blameless.....from his entire life which is to make a profit on human misery you know that he is betting on EU failure or collapse...maybe to gain power or money or both....I can't remember where I read it, but remember reading that he works for the Rothchilds....This guy is a huge NWO guy and hopes to speed that up
here we go...when the consequences of financial mismanagement arise and it is time to pay the piper WE CHANGE THE RULES...there will not be a word about who bears the brunt of the cost of the new rules because it is well known that it will be 'socialized' ie passed on to the peasants er taxpayers. Soros is proposing that the very tool of government repression (seigniorage rights which includes the ability to inflate debt and make it repayable with toilet paper a few years hence)is such a handy device that it should be capitalized! "Hey, I'll sell you the rights to abuse my citizens for the price of a ticket out of here to TPTB paradise". Any decent person would recognize the abuse of such policies and the damage they do to savers (widows and orphans). Not Soros, he would 'capitalize' it. Kinda of like selling the patents on waterboarding.
If the world were a just place those who made the stupid loans would pay and we would move on. This cannot happen however because it was the pensions of widows and orphans that were lent and it was TPTB that did the lending. Too many crowned heads would roll if these matters were handled according to the usual rules of accounting and finance. Therefore many will look at the suggestions of Soros and say: 'That sound great. As we saw there was at least one weak question that sought to ensure it would be legal. If they do pursue this grift I can assure all that the law in question will be interpreted to mean exactly what they need it to mean.
here we go...when the consequences of financial mismanagement arise and it is time to pay the piper WE CHANGE THE RULES...there will not be a word about who bears the brunt of the cost of the new rules because it is well known that it will be 'socialized' ie passed on to the peasants er taxpayers. Soros is proposing that the very tool of government repression (seigniorage rights which includes the ability to inflate debt and make it repayable with toilet paper a few years hence) is such a handy device that it should be capitalized! "Hey, I'll sell you the rights to abuse my citizens for the price of a ticket out of here to TPTB paradise". Any decent person would recognize the abuse of such policies and the damage they do to savers (widows and orphans). Not Soros, he would 'capitalize' it. Kinda of like selling the patents on waterboarding.
If the world were a just place those who made the stupid loans would pay and we would move on. This cannot happen however because it was the pensions of widows and orphans that were lent and it was TPTB that did the lending. Too many crowned heads would roll if these matters were handled according to the usual rules of accounting and finance. Therefore many will look at the suggestions of Soros and say: 'That sound great. As we saw there was at least one weak question that sought to ensure it would be legal. If they do pursue this grift I can assure all that the law in question will be interpreted to mean exactly what they need it to mean.
Iceberg dead ahead? Lol, we hit that three years ago. That ice berg is way behind us. Now one compartment after the other is flooding. Engine has failed, no one to save us, the water is freezing and not enough life boats.
" a man trying to find answers" or is a man trying to cause a further crisis?
Major German political parties have decided that only Approved Members can be permitted to speak in the German Bundestag and are changing Standing Orders so The Speaker may only call those politicians that the Party Whips deem appropriate - "on message" to speak. The fact that Opponents of the Greek Bailout were called to speak in debates in the Bundestag has angered party leaders.......New Europe, New Democracy
He have bet the FARM that ECB will PRINT. Soros going broke if doesnt happen.
LOL, Old man Winter complaining about too much ice?! Classic.
Does anyone still listen to that Nazi? Even the Titanic stayed afloat for some minutes after hitting the iceberg. We hit ours on October 31st and have not yet completely been swallowed by the turbulent seas.
Wasn't at Davos 2010 Dec that he said gold was in a buble. Then in the first quarter it was found out his holdings of gold actually increased 20%...
Typical P.O.S.
Dear George,
While I do appreciate your self-serving but otherwise lyrical propagandistic waxing, regarding the EZ monetary havoc, I would like to kindly request that you stop manipulating my company stock holdings with the continuous dumping and buying back of dark pools, via your Quantum Fund.
P.S. I would also appreciate if you could expediate whatever is that you do in France with the passing of shale gas legislation and perhaps "influence" the news cycle regarding polish shale gas exploration, because I have a certain lifestyle which needs to be maintained and I'm developing expensive habits (you know what I'm talking about).
Kind Regards
xoxo
You could be a good guy and have your butt boy O'Bama send our oil rigs back from Brazil, but, nah, it won't happen.
"I fuck you long time, USA, HAHAHA."
..."he opines, the European crisis is complex since it is a vicious circle of competing crises." Translation: I haven't quite figured out yet who to bribe or blackmail for inside information on how to profit from this, and I sure as hell won't tell you until my position is on and you can help me.
IMHO, this guy belongs in a place lower than hell. Like his butt buddy Warren I-don't-mind-my-taxes-being-higher-but-I-owe-a-billion-dollars Buffet, he profits from a fascist state and crony capitalism. If hypocrisy were a virtue he'd make Mother Teresa look like a pimp.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
If the good die youg...George Soros will live forever.
Hand cuff him. Throw him into prison before he gets a chance to die.
Then you'd have to arrest Jon Corzine and throw him into the same cell so good ole boy Soros would have someone to love him long time.
How can anybody believe a public statement from Soros? His recipe is 7/8 manipulation, 1/8 true and obvious facts to make it believable. The dollar must be about to shit the bed if he's acting concerned about the euro situation.
Well, actually, he's just spilling the beans on what's about to happen. Only 2 to 3 trillion will be the lower end of what will be provided. Hopefully the SPV will be in place for good ole Uncle Ben to start QE4 later in the year providing liquidity to fund the 4th Reich of National Socialism. Fascism marches on and waits for nobody.
It's been estimated that the Iraq war cost approximately 4 trillion $USD, while the Iran war with it's occupation will cost upwards of 20 trillion $USD.
How do you think they built those Starships and Death Stars, with lollypops? This crap costs money, even if it is just toliet paper.
Probably sitting on a truckload of Spanish bonds.
Where's the Malaysian or Hungarian police with the arrest warrant ?
i hope he get buried and not cremated so i get the chance to piss on his grave
Fuck you Soros! Hope you die soon you fuck-wad!
Following the worst week for equities this year, bad news on top of more bad news, various financial analysts alarmed about the Eurozone, Fukushima, China, downratings of Banks and Sovereigns ...
I cannot recall this many Bullish indicators converging in this manner in a long time. Dow, S&P will take off like a rocket this week.
I find most of the negative comments about Soros to be hilarious.
1. Judgements about a person who lived through something very few left living have experienced. 99% of the turd lick, dip shits that comment about his actions during the WWII would have done the same and worse in the situation. They can talk a big story, but when the shit the the fan, survival instincts kick in!
2. Comments about his propensity for making money are just expressions from pissed individuals because they can't get their shit together enough to make the same kind of money.
Reading the comments here at ZH is getting less and less worthwhile. It used to contain many educated individuals adding to the conversation now it's just 90% idiotic, uneducated-parroting of MSM, far right, or far left, unoriginal thinking.
The guy is a POS and if you are defending him then you must like shit........Go back to Media Matters or the Daily Kos and sing the praise of Chairman Mao or Obummer
Alrighty then, will we be able to read any future comments from you over at the AOL-Huffpost?
Some might argue that ZH is turning into the same kind of gin-joint.
Prometheus418- We've always been like this. It's just that the newbees who are showing up are so wet behind the ears about any of this that they haven't yet reached the level of outrage and sarcasim/synicism that wide awake people feel everyday. Don't worry though. They will finally decide to read and inform and they will be giving a down arrow to the same kind of crap faster than you can say rehypothecation. Same type of people crticized the silver bears and now they love them.
Noob
Please leave anytime
Of the many disparate foundations and adjunct organizations of George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Tides Foundation was endowed with $24.6 million from the OSI and reportedly gave Adbusters Media Foundation $6.4 million since 2001. Another Soros organization, the Alliance for Global Justice, provided OWS directly with $206,000. This is in keeping with the stated policy of other Soros fronts among many others such as the Democracy Alliance which has given "progressive organizations" some $150 million with the stated aim of "forming Wall Street progressive movements to end the domination of the economy, government culture and media by large corporations". While it may appear to the disinterested observer that the street theater of OWS is a spontaneous, singular and merely national phenomenon, the movement is but the latest emanation and culmination of decades of agit-prop subversion conducted by so-called Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) acting at the behest of diverse government funded institutes and foundations. The so-called "color revolutions" which have taken place most notably across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of the former Soviet Union have been funded and ideologically managed by such agencies as the notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The various color coded revolutions which to greater or lesser degrees have changed the socio-political landscapes in former Soviet Georgia, the Ukraine, Belarus and most recently Iran can be traced to the Rand Corporation. Indeed, Mr. Soros and his Open Society Institute which has close ties to the NED has apparently been active across the globe in fomenting the kind of agitation which has become the staple of various destabilizations from Myanmar to Belarus.
Yes, the good "ol NED. I have studied the NGO's, especially the NED. More people need to understand the great threat that they pose to humanity. Makes me sick.
This is one guy who really needs to be in prison.
Watch out, he's gonna short sheet somebody else again!
Soros understands quite well the financial knot to cut, but he stays silent as why the politicians do NOTHING to cut that knot.The reason is quote simple : the European UNION is a totally artificial and UN-democratic institution.It was built that way under the false pretense of a " gradual " integration project of various nations who would relinquish their national sovereignity step by step while the political elite of each country would also follow that integration ; BUT instead of political integration and a leaner and slimmer European Union we have accumulated layers upon layers of political elites who are not getting smaller but only repilcating and duplicating thier own internal hierarchy , at the grander scale of the European institutions.
European Union is therefore choking with thousands of offices and extremely well payed high ranking clerks who want to stay on this gravy boat as long as the taxpayers will endure footing their bills.( an usherer in Brussels European union executive arm earns 5,000 € /mo.tax-free plus a lot of perks - a judge at the European court of justice earns a nice 25,000 €/mo. tax free , there is president for that European Steamboat named Hermann Van Rompuy a totally clueless belgian politician earning 400,000 € with a staff of 40 assistants ).
In addition to staying the course and getting their fat pay-checks tax-free ( as if the European Union was an extra-territorial entity like a foreign embassy in Washington ) these nomenklatura is totally IRRESPONSIBLE politically because they were very clever at the start of theis very old " european integration " story to create a European parliament who HAS NO RIGHT TO CHECK AND TO KICK THE ASS OF THE EUROPEAN EXECUTIVE arm in Brussels ( no political veto power ).So this is a ongoing never-ending comedy of national countries sending their best political minds in Brussels to walk the slowest but most expensive way to keep the european project alive but not too much to avoid getting to the end of the gravy train,i.e the fusion and streamlining of all national governmenrts into one federal government like in the USA.
Under those bad omens each country imposed its own political agenda :Germany received the obedient BCE and France the most generous agricultural subsidies policy for its peasants and on and on with each country.Therefore there is no surprise that germany will stands steadfast to avoid as much as possible the BCE to subsidy the poor endebted PIIGS.In the financial sovereignity there is only one heavyweight Germany and its neighbours Netherlands, Finland, Luxemburg. One solution would be to create a single Eurobond market and to create a medium rate of interest therefore giving a relief to Italy Spain Ireland by lowering their % of interest they pay o their T bonds while it would raise the % payed by the German Bunds. Only the threat of the PIIGS reneging on their debt for a 10 year moratorium would alrm really Germany and push it into the single unified eurobond integration.
INET is a joke, it should be renamed IRET (Institute of Repackaged Economic Thinking). Having Larry Summers as an keynote INET conference speaker last year?— what a buffoon!
George Soros funds INET with $50 million dollars, yet INET generated ideas are nonexistent on the important blogs or in the media. The world is arguably in the worst credit crisis ever, and all the $50 million dollar INET institution can do is nibble around the edges, PATHETIC!
Political-economy intellectual leadership remains with Zero Hedge and Naked Capitalism, which are doing it on a shoestring budget. Geroge, either demand your money back or replace INET leadership. Please ask Tyler Durden and Yves Smith for possible names.
The mumbling puts me to sleep. I couldn't stay focused long enough to even comment on content.
I wish guys like Soros and Larry Summers would just stfu. You would think in this environment they would see the wisdom of retirement into comfortable obscurity. But nooo these sociopaths, they just can't help preaching and pontificating about the metastasizing cancer masquerading as our present day economy, that they were so instrumental in creating. A pox on all their houses.
Most importantly, some extraordinary measures need to be invented to bring conditions back to normal.
**********
The measures to bring conditions back to normal hardly need to be invented-when they have always existed and should have been implemented in 2008-
Let the banks/corporations/stock and bond holders die-
Nationalize the banks--print the depositors whole-then sell the good assets off to the banks that survived-
Let the upside down corporations fail just like the banks--sell the remaining assets off to better competitors and allow for restructuring-
We probably could have been cooking by now-likely at a much lower value level-but perhaps a sustainable level-
Wow, most of the comments are decidedly not just critical of Soros, but are irrationally hateful and eager to use FoxNews' Glenn Beck's hateful and untrue accusations about how Soros evaded capture by the Nazis as a 12 year old boy.
Soros didn't escape the Nazis and build a great investment because he was an idiot.
Soros is a great man in my opinion, not euro-trash. It is a pity the level of hate in the comments on this thread, and I'm sure I'll receive many hate replies just for posting this.
He has really aged, so for those who hate him, he probably won't be around too much longer.
Of course he's right, the Eurozone will break apart, sooner than later with disastrous still unforeseen consequences and the US will be right behind since US debt is now more than 100% of GDP.
Many believe Soros chose to cooperate with the Nazi's for money. Does your Google work mainstream guy?
The technical aspects of capitalizing funds (leverage capital!) to allow insolvent governments to continue to borrow to pay the pensioners, unemployed, students, etc. in the long run probably will be noise even if there is some short run success, which probably is a stretch. The governments spend more than they take in not year after year, but decade after decade. It is the free rider syndrome in spades; U.S. too. The beautiful system is up.
The posts on this thread are beginning to sound like FauxNews... Name calling and character assassination taking the place of real information and argument... George Soros is a douchebagnozzle..te he hee.
Try the lowest form of adult humour.. satire, a step above the potty mouth of the simpletons posting here.
George Soros is the " spokes person" for mASSENGILL dOUCHES!
You punk ass hats, make me laugh!
Bankers, traders and investors like Soros thrive on imbalances as it these that offer them the opportunity to make squillions at the expense of nations and their citizens. In fact, the bigger the imbalance, the greater their profit.
Listening to him is like listening to a Nazi telling the world how the plight of Jewish people can be overcome.
Doesn't anyone listen to " Ilene"?
GULFSTREAM is a subsidiary of General Dynamics?
Utilize the opposite of his position, divide by 2 (soetero & soros) multiply by lies2exponent. Then throw in crap bin for aging process. Pull out 90 days later and wolla behold he stinketh.
Soros = Nazi
Evil talks VERY slowly. Spit it out in 10% as much time you minion of Satan. At least five thousand people died due to CB money printing while you babbled on...
Soros wants MORE Statism and central control, not prosperity.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/soros-big-fat-statist...
Europe has its problems, that's true. Everybody blames the euro for that but I don't really see the problem there. You have a bunch of free variables and when you fix one and eliminate the FX risk the free ones will move to compensate. So pigs cannot devalue and hence you have the rising yields, which inevitably means austerity cause it is too expensive to borrow and fund deficits.
In terms of the so often mentioned "competitiveness" - devaluing is obviously not the only way. What is the difference between receiving 20% smaller salary and keeping the same nominal salary but in terms of 20% devalued currency. It is the same! Austria enjoyed fixed exchange rates before the EMU, swiss pegged the frank in the 80s I think. What is the problem with having a bunch of companies sharing a common currency - if some of them are not competitive then optimize the costs, lower the wages and move on. The same works for countries.
The euro would actually function like a gold standard for the member countries if there weren't these LTROs, euros for trash loans, buying euro bonds on the market by the ecb and so on. All this austerity, basically blamed on ze germans (including all this Nordic neighbours) would be the natural way to go in a gold standard monetary system.
Now, obviously ECB like all others is "easing" and this obviously benefits the banks and the big corporations and is hurting the 99-ners. And here comes Soros, one of the 0.001ers and says "disaster is coming " and even more easing via SPVs is needed. Of course it is in his best interest. He may also believe it is good for all but there is no fucking argument why we should follow his advice provided he has made the best bunch of his money out of politician's mistakes.
Good, we are all going to be saved by a few sets of documents creating various SPVs some beauracrats to administer them and a few billion electronic ones and zeros.
Now why didn't someone think of this on ZH and patent this incredible idea?
From the conservative patriot.
Radical amnesty fanatics just held a protest demanding that the federal government step in and strip Sheriff Joe of his badge – Obama’s buddy George Soros even pledged $10 million to defeat Sheriff Joe for reelection.
More than anything else, the Spender-in-Chief wants to stop Sheriff Joe from continuing the Cold Case Posse investigation of his Constitutional eligibility to be President – an investigation which has already unearthed ‘probable cause’ and evidence of a systemic effort to cover-up and conceal information surrounding Barack Hussein Obama’s alleged citizenship.
Soros is Hitlers illegitimate spawn. His grand mastubatory fetish creation the ultimate global orgy of death is taking shape. The piles of obliterated bodies and murdered children are rotting just like his face is.
Iceberg dead ahead? Poor George coming up for air is the sign of desperation after the crash into the iceberg of the Soros China project with Bo's demise? EU and an icebgerg is the ddeath of shadow banking and smoke collateral. What's a George to do?
On these pages, in respect of George, there's only one thing to do - deny him air.
Hi all, First time posting. Love you Tyler! Have been reading this blog for over a year, have learned alot. I enjoy reading everyones blogs. Hope things are well with all of you!
Look, every society has to balance which side gets more of the goodies, Capital or Labor. Yes I'm a Lib because I believe there needs to be a balance between the two, not the one-sided unregulated rigged game the US hyper-capitalist economy has become. The 1% get the spoils AND the Communism and bailouts, the rest of us get the losses. I think it's fine if Soros built a huge pile of cash investing, so long as the playing field is not *completely and utterly tilted in his favor*. I don't give a damn what politics Soros supports, any more than I cared about Ronald Reagan's astrology, Clinton's blowjobs, or Obomba's birth certificate. Just get your religion out of my government and my school like the founders intended, put white collar criminals in jail, stop spying on me, give me back my freedoms, stop the "bomb first" foreign policy, tilt the playing field back til it's somewhat level, get the Fed back to their original passive charter, and bring the troops home. There, problem solved. Can't we all just get along?
He is at the very least comedy.
IMO, Soros has pressed his shoulder to the plow ... a plow designed and destined to drive western powers to their knees and while greatly profiting from the enterprise, he will work tirelessly to force a collapse which he believes will be followed by a truly ‘open society’ (Mad Men with Mad Schemes to produce a Mad Max World) ... he's done it before with small potatoes in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the UK.
The whole of Europe is now in his sights with the USA waiting in the wings.
Even the uber-left are circumspect: Krugman has been critical of Soros' efforts for a long time:
"Nobody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'. .... 1999
...Soros, controlled world trade demolition man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNhl0-XH6u8
Oh Goergie, that $ mark for your forehead is aaah waiting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUfoPEkxJs
as i have said many times before there is only one solution.
the ecb needs to patent, manufacture and offer for sale, at
a reasonable price, a penetrating foreskin re-growth cream.
this cream would regrow the foreskin and would only require
a daily application which would take no more than 15 minutes
a day, preferably in the evening when the days work has been
completed and after the last meal of the day, when a man of
some means can relax and think about the world and its many
design flaws and inexplicable functional and systemic imbalances.
the proceeds would be enormous, no pun, and could go toward buying
sovereign debt, the profit from which could go toward buying more
cream. no?
oh, i give up.
Soros s**** on the ashes of humanity.
His world plan is tyrannical and global in scope. He has no compunction about levelling states and so too the good efforts of humanity. Soros and his "Open Society" framework are ultimately tied in with all the other tyrants he plays Heads to the Bushes Tails on the same coin.
Mark my words there all in this together shepperding the sheep as the wolves they are on left amd right.
I am surprised there's an illusion Germany is the victim in the EU crisis.
The periferal (PIGS) are being forced to keep
the same fix currency with Germany ruining there domestic production even to their own markets. (ie at least Spanish farmers ect could get a break if they had weaker currency). Where as they can't compete with germanys economies of scale . To make matters worse Germany and France have sucked all the domestic savings out of the pigs and the buba is helping by not allowing
ECB to support PIGS bond markets during time of crisis . The end is that funds are flowing to Bunds and treasuries. It's seems convenient everytime US has fiscal issues arise a small eu country bonds get sold.. This wouldn't be US investment banks with the passive approval of Germany to support treasuries where the real risk lies for US banks . How sad that US with higher debt levels is critiquing Spain while at the same time driving finds from them to support their own bonds.. Convienent the IMF (US controlled won't help) or even allow others to.
I am surprised there's an illusion Germany is the victim in the EU crisis.
___________________
I am not.
Nobody who notices the involvement of US citizens should.
Victimology is high among US citizens and they have to be the victims.
After a video of this type, (whether one agrees or disagrees with Soros), and every once in a while I feel compelled to say that Zerohedge is a GREAT blog, website, source of information, whatever one wants to call it ! It saves us the time to have to scroll the "Inet" of the world and let us rest asssured not to miss relevant information or thought provoking ideas. Thank you
Germany is enslaving the PIGS by forcing all the production out of their countries and into Germany and the US is facilitating to support their own fiscal crisis. Germany gets the weak currency and low rates and fully employment PIGS get sky high rates high unemployment and all savings removed. It's funny how people complain about the FED and US banks when the real victims are the PIGs .. I wonder who the US /German/japan alliance will target next when they have drained the PIGs of all they can.. Seems to me you are all aligned with Soros anyway you just don't know it..
Another admittance of straightforward reality.
The main cause is stagnation in the expansion process. It is all about determining who is a real member of the gang and who is not.
The Greeks have just discovered they are not full members of the US citizen big club.
Too many sheep like idiots here quoting redarded Glenn Beck fuckpuppet of News Corp and Murdoch.
Soros was small kid during nazi regime. You can`t even stand trial at that age ffs. Some of ppl are are as brainwashed as the twats they`re calling "sheeple".
juicygrabs...if you would have taken the time and read through the posts there is information posted if you cared to know about that goes well beyond his "kid" years. I am posting again the most recent regarding a soros owned company called Scytl. A Spanish company that is planned to count our 2012 election votes. IMO, it is not limited to money but also power. You may be disappointed that it isn't a Glenn Beck link. Also, take a moment and educate yourself on Dapper Dan's post of the various organizations he is involved in.
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/2012-election/
Soros stoll my idea that I have posted on this site previously. I called for a seperate fund based on Mars where we could place all the European debt. My "Mars Fund" is better because the debt is actually off of the planet and out into the Milky Way. The debt will be further away and pose a significantly lower degree of risk. I must give credit to my idea from the Harvard econonomics classes that I took in my younger days. I dont expect everybody to appreciate the eloquent sophistication and genius of this idea. Many people are just not as intelligent as George and I.
Solve the problem by creating a SPV capitalized with the ECB's seignorage rights?
Typical of Soros and his ilk, it is too clever by half.
Soros is so old and his world is about to end. But I bet he's well-positioned to benefit from its collapse. I don't think this "concern" can be trusted.
Since my (probably distant cousin) Mr. Soros is still causing turmoil in the world financial system at age 80 or thereabouts, can you imagine what we will have to face when all the Soros Clones take power 25 or 30 years from now?
Everyone does realize, do they not, that The Boys From Brazil was fact, not fiction, except for the misdirection. It wasn't Hitler, but Mr. Soros, who was being cloned - and all the mini-Sorosi are now in their late teens or early 20s:
Fritz Soros in Germany, Neville Soros in the UK, Kim Park Soros in South Korea, Kim Jong Soros in North Korea, Li Li Soros in China, Dilma Hernandez-Soros in Brazil, Chelsea Sue Soros in the US . . .
I hear there are at least 384 Baby Sorosi around the globe now. And alas! they are all shorting the Euro.
Soros's proposal amounts to polishing the brass on the Titanic.
HE'S HUNGARIAN AND HIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN THE RECEPIENT OF ALL THE BLS FROM EUROPE NOT TO MENTION THAT THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN AND WILL CONTINUE BEEN CRUSHED BY OTHER EUROPEANS
Poor lil rich boy Soros is a psychopath.
Soros, the crypto-Nazi, like Corzine.
The Big Picture Wile E. Coyote Equity Top.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-24/market-analysis
Prepare for a substantial USD rally.