“Right now we are at the cusp," billionaire George Soros tells Bloomberg TV in this brief clip, the chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go "down the drain." The 84-year-old fears that talks between Greece and 'the institutions' could "break down," adding that "Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all parties," concluding that the chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go "down the drain." Finally, Soros notes, what worries him the most is Ukraine.
The chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go “down the drain,” billionaire investor George Soros said.
“It’s now a lose-lose game and the best that can happen is actually muddling through,” Soros, 84, said in a Bloomberg Television interview due to air Tuesday. “Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all parties.”
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government needs to persuade its creditors to sign off on a package of economic measures to free up long-withheld aid payments that will keep the country afloat. Since his January election victory, he has tried to shape an alternative to the austerity program set out in the nation’s bailout agreement, spurring concern that Greece may be forced out of the euro.
The negotiations between Tsipras’s Syriza government and the institutions helping finance the Greek economy -- the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund -- could result in a “breakdown,” leading to the country leaving the common currency area, Soros said in the interview at his London home.
“You can keep on pushing it back indefinitely,” making interest payments without writing down debt, Soros said. “But in the meantime there will be no primary surplus because Greece is going down the drain.”
Soros said in January 2012 that the odds are in the direction of Greece leaving the euro region.
“Right now we are at the cusp and I can see both possibilities,” he said in Tuesday’s interview.
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Soros explains...
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And concludes with some thoughts on Ukraine...
...the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and rebel militia supported by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin concerns him the most.
Without more external financial assistance the “new Ukraine” probably will gradually deteriorate and “become like the old Ukraine so that the oligarchs come back and assert their power,” he said. “That fight has actually started in the last week or so.”
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