Soros predicts worst recession in 50 years

Soros predicts worst recession in 50 years

www.thefirstpost.co.uk

Amid collapsing stock prices worldwide, the billionaire investor George Soros has told an Austrian daily, the Standard, that the United States is threatened with recession and the world is facing the worst financial crisis in half a century. "The situation is much more serious than any other financial crisis since the end of World War II," Soros was quoted as saying.

He said over the past few years politics had been guided by some basic misunderstandings stemming from something that he called "market fundamentalism" - the belief that financial markets tended to act as a balance. "This is the wrong idea," he said. "We really do have a serious financial crisis now."

He added he was surprised how little it was understood that a US recession was also a threat to Europe. European shares duly fell nearly six per cent on Monday, their biggest one-day slide since 9/11.

Meanwhile in Mumbai, some market analysts are suggesting Soros shorted the Indian markets last week. Over 15 years after he shorted the British pound in September 1992 and earned one billion dollars, local market sources say one of Soros's funds may have shorted the Nifty last week.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Hmm...This guy seems to be a somewhat controversial figure. He's tossing out some pretty bold statements. Anybody have an opinion on him or his statements?

www.thefirstpost.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

well being a billionaire, means he is probably pretty market savvy huh

perhaps bubblevision is not letting everyone in on how bad or better yet how delicate of a situation we are in ( actually many analysts say most" ecnonomists" don't even grasp the true danger of the situation because of the complex and advanced financial alchemy that has gone and created a 450 TRILLION dollar pyramid of over the counter derivatives) as financial shanagnigans gone awry threaten to implode and take the financial system and the economy for a steep ride down with it.

suppossedly the federal gov't and Plunge protection team and the fed are willing to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to avoid such a massive deflationary spiral of defaults in credit (including bond market monolines going bust) and that this stimulus package announced today is just the beginning of a possible massive monetary package (i.e inflation)

depending on wether other country's will have to take these steps (most likely) all currency's may be devalued against gold .

Bernanke may take the fed funds rate to zero, and the u.s fed may escape deflation better than japan, because the u.s may not have the option of maintaining a decent standar of living if a deflation were to happen (unlike japan) so the u.s gov't and federal reserve may be much more agressive and even reckless (lesser of two evils for wealthy) with these policy's. since they are going "first" the dollar may fall fast, only to probably bounce back up when Europe ends up having to do the same thing a bit later.

only question i have and i'm not market savvy enough to know, is would fed protect the dow at any cost (and the derivatives) even though doing so may unleash rapid inflation which could crush the u.s bond market (which is bigger than the stk market) and would probably due it's own damage with causing derivatives consequences





[edit on 24-1-2008 by cpdaman]

Please don't get me wrong. I have no doubt we are in big doo-doo. But I can't help but wonder whether it is Soros' interest to talk the markets down given his fortune was made on shorting the markets.

Just a thought.

[edit on 24-1-2008 by loam]

reply to post by DimensionalDetective




It's actually 60 (sixty) years.
And here's the original article:

The Financial Times