Soros Compares Mishandling Of Current Crisis To Great Depression
Billionaire investor slams Paulson, says we’re heading into a financial storm
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Billionaire investor George Soros has slammed US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for behaving in the same manner as bankers in the 1930’s and mishandling a financial crisis that threatens a repeat of the Great Depression.
Soros told BBC Newsnight that the world was merely at the beginning of a financial storm and warned, “We mustn’t allow the financial system to collapse as it did in the 1930s.”
Referring to Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, Soros stated, “The way Paulson is handling the situation is reminiscent of the way the bankers handled it in the 1930s.”
He added: “The financial system has gone overboard and the financial engineering has grown to big, it takes up too big a share in the world’s resources.”
“Now it is shrinking. When it becomes regulated it will be less profitable than the last 25 years.”
Soros, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, is ranked by Forbes as the 99th richest person in the world with a net worth of around $9 billion.
Ironically, Soros made his name by reaping the dividends of another financial meltdown when he “broke the Bank of England” by short-selling the pound sterling before the currency dropped out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, landing Soros a profit of around $1.1 billion.
In 2006, the highest court in France upheld a conviction that Soros had practiced insider trading when he bought shares in French bank Société Générale after discovering that the bank was on the verge of a takeover.
Soros has repeatedly predicted fiscal armageddon, writing three books about a “superbubble” that is on the verge of collapse.
In response to those accusing him of crying wolf in an effort to panic financial markets and benefit from the fallout, Soros stated, “I have a record of crying wolf…. I did it first in The Alchemy of Finance (in 1987), then in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (in 1998) and now in this book (2008’s The New Paradigm for Financial Markets). So it’s three books predicting disaster. (After) the boy cried wolf three times . . . the wolf really came.”
Respondents to a Daily Mail article about Soros’ comments accused the financier of engaging in wanton hypocrisy.
“I don’t know why on Earth they interview Soros since he has been proven again and again to deliberately spread financial rumour for his own exploitation and gain,” wrote one, “Soros became a multi multi billionaire precisely through manipulating markets like this - if this man says that we are heading for a 1930’s style crash you can guarantee he already has plans to profit from it.”
Billionaire investor slams Paulson, says we’re heading into a financial storm
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Billionaire investor George Soros has slammed US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for behaving in the same manner as bankers in the 1930’s and mishandling a financial crisis that threatens a repeat of the Great Depression.
Soros told BBC Newsnight that the world was merely at the beginning of a financial storm and warned, “We mustn’t allow the financial system to collapse as it did in the 1930s.”
Referring to Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, Soros stated, “The way Paulson is handling the situation is reminiscent of the way the bankers handled it in the 1930s.”
He added: “The financial system has gone overboard and the financial engineering has grown to big, it takes up too big a share in the world’s resources.”
“Now it is shrinking. When it becomes regulated it will be less profitable than the last 25 years.”
Soros, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, is ranked by Forbes as the 99th richest person in the world with a net worth of around $9 billion.
Ironically, Soros made his name by reaping the dividends of another financial meltdown when he “broke the Bank of England” by short-selling the pound sterling before the currency dropped out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, landing Soros a profit of around $1.1 billion.
In 2006, the highest court in France upheld a conviction that Soros had practiced insider trading when he bought shares in French bank Société Générale after discovering that the bank was on the verge of a takeover.
Soros has repeatedly predicted fiscal armageddon, writing three books about a “superbubble” that is on the verge of collapse.
In response to those accusing him of crying wolf in an effort to panic financial markets and benefit from the fallout, Soros stated, “I have a record of crying wolf…. I did it first in The Alchemy of Finance (in 1987), then in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (in 1998) and now in this book (2008’s The New Paradigm for Financial Markets). So it’s three books predicting disaster. (After) the boy cried wolf three times . . . the wolf really came.”
Respondents to a Daily Mail article about Soros’ comments accused the financier of engaging in wanton hypocrisy.
“I don’t know why on Earth they interview Soros since he has been proven again and again to deliberately spread financial rumour for his own exploitation and gain,” wrote one, “Soros became a multi multi billionaire precisely through manipulating markets like this - if this man says that we are heading for a 1930’s style crash you can guarantee he already has plans to profit from it.”
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