[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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