Billionaires of all stripes are scared shitless over this European debt saga and will do anything or say anything to keep Extend and Pretend in motion. After all, there is literally no place to hide when you are playing with that amount of money. A problem we should all have...
Digging into this unseemly interview, we have to get our hands a bit dirty here...
I will start by saying that blaming any one nation or ethnic group for this crisis is unconscionable. As I just showed recently, EVERY Western nation is either highly leveraged with debt or highly leveraged (via exports) to every other country with debt i.e. the people buying all of those exports. That's Globalization in a nutshell - the entire world economy highly interconnected and correlated.
The next most egregious claim is that this moment in history is like the immediate post-WWII era and therefore requires a similar Marshall Plan for reconstruction. Excuse me? We are now comparing a 30+ year consumption binge to a World War? That is the Idiocracy's mantra - we are 'entitled' to this standard of living, therefore we must do everything possible and mortgage every human being to the maximum extent possible - Germans, Chinese wage slaves, our children, grandchildren whomever, just to keep the consumption-addled dream alive. Meanwhile, the Marshall Plan was about rebuilding critical infrastructure destroyed during the war. What the hell are we rebuilding now - Wendy's and Burger King ?
Then there's some more pseudo-moralistic Marxist propaganda about Germany benefiting the most so needing to do the most...You have to love the crass cynicism of a multi-billionaire recommending everyone else adopt Marxist income distribution, to prop up his investments.
Of course, his main recommendation is the usual - Germany needs to subsidize the other nations via Eurobonds (slightly modified to Eurobills - he is a sophisticated investor, after all). And of course, structural reforms will work this time where they have failed every other time in the past. Rinse and Repeat. Extend and Pretend...
Most importantly, he assiduously avoids the one and only key question worth asking at this juncture i.e.. whether or not the lifestyle of these highly indebted European nations is sustainable in the first place. Which, evidenced by 30 years of accumulated debt, IT'S NOT. Just last week, Hollande in France announced a top tax rate of 75% and a plan to make it (financially) impossible for companies to layoff their workers. All bundled under the auspice of 'growth' oriented reforms! And yet according to Soros, all we need is for Germans to pay more, in order to keep the French dream of getting paid to do nothing, alive !
All in all, it was another waste of time interview with yet another comfort seeker staying awake at night wondering where he can put his money next...
