[Aaus-list] NY Books: The Future of Europe: An Interview with George Soros George Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz
Max Pyziur
pyz at brama.com
Thu Mar 20 20:35:54 EDT 2014
NY Books: The Future of Europe: An Interview with George Soros George
Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/apr/24/future-europe-interview-george-soros/
Another title for this should have been why, in its current state, the EU
is such an unmitigagted political and fiscal self-made disaster ...
Read the whole thing (useless verbiage in the guise of a recommendation).
The highlights below are there only if you don't make the time to read it
in its entirety.
On the EU and the euro
" ...Chancellor Angela Merkel is satisfied with the way she handled the
[financial] crisis and so is the German public. They reelected her with an
increased majority. She has always done the absolute minimum necessary to
preserve the euro."
" I acknowledge that Germany has stopped pushing the debtor countries
underwater. They are getting a little bit of oxygen now and are beginning
to breathe. ... But the prospect of a long period of stagnation has not
been removed."
" Shmitz: As we speak, European finance ministers are in the process of
concluding an agreement on the banking union. What do you think of it?
Soros: In the process of negotiations, the so-called banking union has
been transformed into something that is almost the exact opposite: the
re-establishment of national “silos,” or separately run banks. This is a
victory for Orwellian newspeak.
... Soros: In effect, the banking union will leave the banking system
without a lender of last resort. The proposed resolution authority is so
complicated, with so many decision-making entities involved, that it is
practically useless in an emergency. Even worse, the ECB is legally
prohibited from undertaking actions for which it is not expressly
authorized. That sets it apart from other central banks, which are
expected to use their discretion in an emergency."
On Putin:
"He is acting in self-defense. He has no scruples, he can be ruthless, but
he is a judo expert, not a sadist—so the economic weakness and the
aggressive behavior are entirely self-consistent. ...
Putin prides himself on being a geopolitical realist. He respects strength
and is emboldened by weakness."
fyi,
MP
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