NEW YORK (Reuters) - Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of near-term resolution to the crisis.
Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.
"We witnessed the collapse of the financial system," Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. "It was placed on life support, and it's still on life support. There's
no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom."His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain.
"I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world," Volcker said.
George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.
I don't care if this guy is a trillionaire - he simply can't be trusted to suggest what really is in the best interests of America. He built himself up in the capitalist system he seems intent on blowing up. Maybe I'm being too cynical and he really is a capitalist at heart - maybe he's just trying to sell more of those doomsday books he keeps writing. In any case, according to the Forbes list he's ranked 101st richest man in the world, and if being rich equals being smart (which it doesn't), there are at least 100 people out there smarter than Soros. And if they're all socialists too, then this is Bizarro World.
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