Saving the Euro while kicking the can
So Merkel and her friends deliver another “Europe is saved” moment. This time with 120 billion USD pact in order to spur growth. The Algos managed lifting the markets, and may we remind you of the half year window dressing. The can is kicked down the road yet again, and yes, only the Spanish banks need more than 120 billion USD. They tell us we must save the Euro, but why, and for who? More on the subject by Golem.
It is a troubling aspect of our present financial and political situation that there has been a tendency, I would say a deliberate desire, to confuse wealth with debt; to present them as flip sides of each other when they are, in fact, entirely different. Why should this be? Well it might be because much of Mr Soros’ wealth, the wealth of the institutions he owns shares in, the wealth of banks and other financial institutions and the wealth of those who own and run them, is tied up in debt agreements of one kind or another. Your wealth and mine is probably in sovereign issued ‘money’. Most of us don’t have investments. Many don’t have savings to speak of. The wealth of the top 10%, on the other hand, is tied up in debt of one kind or another.
Since the advent of securitization, that process whereby debts can circulate as a form of currency, which can be used as collateral for issuing loans and can be counted as capital, debt has become a larger repository of wealth than sovereign currencies. Why do you think no one talks about the money supply the way they did in the 80’s? Governments do not control the money supply. The issuers of private debt control it.
Eurozone wrap up
The perfect wrap up for the upcoming European “meeting”. Is Europe facing a disaster, or will Merkel pull a trick or two?
Video below.
Soros- A Tragic, Historical Mistake by the Germans
Soros has been rather “active” in the media lately. The master of speculation and reflexivity theory shares his thoughts on the European mess. Must read interview via Spiegel online.
Soros: We Have 3 Days to Avoid ‘Fiasco’
Soros delivers the message;
“This threatens to turn the June (28) summit into a fiasco which may well prove fatal because it will leave the rest of the euro zone without a strong enough firewall to protect it against the possibility of a Greek exit,” Soros wrote.
“Even if a fatal accident can be avoided, the division between creditor and debtor countries will be reinforced and the “periphery” countries will have no chance to regain competitiveness because the playing field is tilted against them.” (CNBC)
Video below.
The Accidental Empire
Recent news flow has been all about Spain, but let’s not forget the rest of Europe. Germany, the leader, must decide how to play this game. By the legendary investor, George Soros.
But we are at an inflection point. The Greek crisis is liable to come to a climax in the fall, even if the election produces a government that is willing to abide by Greece’s current agreement with its creditors. By that time, the German economy will also be weakening, so that Chancellor Angela Merkel will find it even more difficult than today to persuade the German public to accept additional European responsibilities.
Barring an accident like the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Germany is likely to do enough to hold the euro together, but the EU will become something very different from the open society that once fired people’s imagination. The division between debtor and creditor countries will become permanent, with Germany dominating and the periphery becoming a depressed hinterland.
This will inevitably arouse suspicion about Germany’s role in Europe – but any comparison with Germany’s past is quite inappropriate. The current situation is due not to a deliberate plan, but to the lack of one. It is a tragedy of policy errors. Germany is a well-functioning democracy with an overwhelming majority for an open society. When the German people become aware of the consequences – one hopes not too late – they will want to correct the defects in the euro’s design.
It is clear what is needed: a European fiscal authority that is able and willing to reduce the debt burden of the periphery, as well as a banking union. Debt relief could take various forms other than Eurobonds, and would be conditional on debtors abiding by the fiscal compact. Withdrawing all or part of the relief in case of nonperformance would be a powerful protection against moral hazard. It is up to Germany to live up to the leadership responsibilities thrust upon it by its own success. (Full reading here.)
Soros on unrealistic economic models, Maastricht, Karl Popper and the future
George Soros, the master of markets, gave a very interesting speech at the INET in Berlin. Not only are we trapped in the malfunctions of the Newtonian economic theories, but we are facing the worst ahead of us.
Ever since the Crash of 2008 there has been a widespread recognition, both among economists and the general public,that economic theory has failed. But there is no similar consensus, even among participants of this conference, on the nature and implications of that failure. As a sponsor of INET I am delighted because it shows that INET is open to widely different strands of new economic thinking. But I am not only a sponsor; I am also the proponent of an alternative interpretation of financial markets and today that is what I should like to talk about.
Must watch video and full speech below.
Davos Hall of Fame
Soros, Merkel, Draghi, Roubini and some more. Creme de la creme’s best of at Davos.
Soros-”The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”
The master of Reflexivity theory is getting increasingly bearish on the US society. Soros is predicting widespread riots, police state and class war for the mighty US. When Soros speaks, you should listen. From RT;
Billionaire investor George Soros has a new prediction for America. While it might be as dire as it gets for the financial wiz, this bet concerns more than just the value of the buck. According to Soros, there’s about to be an all-out class war.
Soros, 81, previously bet against the British pound in the early 90s and made $1 billion off its collapse. In the years since, he’s remained active in investing, but also in advocacy. He’s helped keep Wikipedia afloat thanks to impressive contributions and through donations to the Tides Center, has indirectly funded Adbusters, the Canadian anti-capitalist magazine that put Occupy Wall Street on the map. Speaking to Newsweek recently, Soros neglected to acknowledge his past successes, but instead offered a word of warning: a period of “evil” is coming to the western world.
“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.” (Full reading here).
Video with Soros below.
Does the Euro Have a Future?-Soros
George Soros, one of the absolutely greatest investors and thinkers, is telling the Truth.
To resolve a crisis in which the impossible becomes possible it is necessary to think about the unthinkable.
The euro crisis is a direct consequence of the crash of 2008. When Lehman Brothers failed, the entire financial system started to collapse and had to be put on artificial life support. This took the form of substituting the sovereign credit of governments for the bank and other credit that had collapsed. At a memorable meeting of European finance ministers in November 2008, they guaranteed that no other financial institutions that are important to the workings of the financial system would be allowed to fail, and their example was followed by the United States.
Angela Merkel then declared that the guarantee should be exercised by each European state individually, not by the European Union or the eurozone acting as a whole. This sowed the seeds of the euro crisis because it revealed and activated a hidden weakness in the construction of the euro: the lack of a common treasury. The crisis itself erupted more than a year later, in 2010.
Full article here.
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