George Soros: China a 'positive force'

George Soros: China a 'positive force'
The billionaire financier George Soros says that China's economy will grow faster than people expect and so will its global economic influence.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -- Financier George Soros said on Sunday that China's global influence is set to grow faster than most people expect, with its isolation from the global financial system and a heavy state role in banking aiding a relatively swift economic recovery.

He reiterated his cautious views regarding the surge in global stock markets, although he said it may have further to go given liquidity in the markets and that many investors are still sitting on the sidelines.
"In many ways, Chinese banking has benefited from being isolated from the rest of the world and is in better shape than the international banking system," he told an audience at Shanghai's Fudan University.

China's extensive capital controls have helped to shield its financial institutions from the worst of the global financial crisis.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/07/news/international/soros_china.reut/index.htm?postversion=2009060712

Soros is very pessimistic and sees a global meltdown

March 28, 2009
George Soros, the man who broke the Bank, sees a global meltdown
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5989163.ece

(Source Times Online)
The man who has a phobia about maths has made his name as the philosopher king of economics – his book The Crash of 2008, out in paper-back next week, has been a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Since 1944 he has believed in what he calls “reflexivity” – the idea that people base their decisions on their own perception of a situation rather than on the reality.
He has applied this both to investment and to politics: his skill has been to predict moments of seismic change by identifying a disjunction between perception and reality.
When everyone else was convinced that the markets would automatically correct themselves, the 78-year-old “old fogey”, as he calls himself, was one of the few warning of recession. He put all his chips on “the Barack guy” early on when all around him were still gunning for Hillary Clinton. It’s almost as if he has been waiting for the Great Recession for the past ten years. When we ask whether he prefers booms or busts, he replies: “I have to admit that actually I flourish, I’m more stimulated by the bust.”
This recession, he explains, is a “once-in-a-lifetime event”, particularly in Britain. “This is a crisis unlike any other. It’s a total collapse of the financial system with tremendous implications for everyday life. On previous occasions when you had a crisis that was threatening the system the authorities intervened and did whatever was necessary to protect the system. This time they failed.”
The financial oracle does not know how long it will last. “That depends on how it’s handled. Allowing Lehman Brothers to fail was the game-changing event. That’s when the financial crisis went over the brink.” We could end up with a depression. “Unless we handle it well then I think we would. The size of the problem is actually bigger than in the 1930s.”
The problem in Britain, he believes, is in many ways worse than in America or Germany. “American memory is seared by the Depression, the German memory is seared by hyperinfla-tion but Britain has a pretty serious problem in many ways worse than America because the financial sector looms bigger and the overvaluation of real estate is bigger than in America.”

Soros: The Recession Will Last Forever
(Source Yahoo Tech Ticker)
Already, there are signs that no consensus will be reached. Germany's Angel Merkel, for one, is sounding particularly strident in her opposition to a "global New Deal", which is what the US and the UK would like to see.

But George Soros says it's the last chance to save the world, and that if they don't the world could face a depression worse than the 30s:
Times of London: The G20 summit in London next week is, he says, the last chance to avert disaster. “The odds would favour that it fails because there are such differences of opinion. It’s difficult enough to get it right in your own country let alone with 20 governments coming together, but if it’s a failure I think then the global financial and trading system falls apart.”
If the G20 is nothing but a talking shop then he thinks we are heading for meltdown. “That could push the world into depression. It’s really a make-or-break occasion. That’s why it’s so important.” The chances of a depression are, he says, “quite high” – even if that is averted, the recession will last a long time. “Look, we are not going back to where we came from. In that sense it’s going to last for ever.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/222342/Soros-The-Recession-Will-Last-Forever?tickers=^dji,^gspc

Olivier Blanchard (IMF Economist) said the crisis should last for another year, but normal growth would return only in 2011.

Olivier Blanchard (IMF Economist) said the crisis should last for another year, but normal growth would return only in 2011.
ZURICH (Reuters) - The financial crisis that has engulfed many top banks is spiraling into a broader economic crisis that has yet to peak, International Monetary Fund's top economist Olivier Blanchard told a Swiss newspaper on Saturday.
Blanchard said the crisis would continue for another year and called on governments to promote fiscal expansion and on central banks to cut rates toward zero.
"The worst is yet to come," he was quoted as saying in Finanz und Wirtschaft as he noted how the banking sector's woes had started to spill over into the real economy by hitting the carmaking industry.
"This is only the beginning," he added. "The risk exists that the data will get worse and worse, which would then lead to more pessimistic expectations and accelerate a fall in demand."
"It will take a long time before we go back to normal conditions."


Obama economic plan aims for 2.5M new jobs by 2011
Saturday November 22, 12:36 pm ET
By Will Lester, Associated Press Writer
Obama economic plan focuses on job creation, public works projects, alternative energy sources
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama promoted an economic plan Saturday he said would create 2.5 million jobs by rebuilding roads and bridges and modernizing schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.
"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis. These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address.
The goal is to get the plan quickly through Congress, with help from both parties, after Obama takes office Jan. 20. The plan, which envisions those new jobs by January 2011, is "big enough to meet the challenges we face," he said.

Report: Soros says more needed for US bailout
BERLIN (AP) - American investor George Soros said he would like to see Washington put $300 to $600 billion more into the $700 billion U.S. economic bailout package, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported in an advance of Monday's edition.
The weekly quoted the billionaire as saying that the United States needs a bigger economic program than the existing Troubled Asset Relief Program package to accommodate American cities and states with the money they need to get out of the financial turbulence, and that the country needs an infrastructure investment program.
Soros also criticized U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for not seeing the economic crisis earlier.
Paulson "reacted to the problem once it was already out in the open. He didn't have the ability to see the problem coming," Soros was quoted as telling Der Spiegel.


Balkenende presenteert plan voor economie
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Het kabinet komt met een pakket van maatregelen om de economie te ondersteunen. Dat heeft premier Jan Peter Balkenende vrijdag gezegd. Het gaat onder andere om een tijdelijke WW-uitkering voor werknemers die tijdens de economische tegenwind overbodig zijn.
Naast deze zogeheten werktijdverkorting kondigde Balkenende verder aan dat de overheid bedrijven gaat ondersteunen door rekeningen voor verleende diensten eerder over te maken aan ondernemers. Bovendien mogen zij investeringen versneld afschrijven. Bedrijven kunnen op die manier gemakkelijker nieuwe investeringen doen.

Soros voorziet ernstige recessie

Soros Forecasts 'Serious' US Economic Correction
Investeerder George Soros heeft Maandag j.l. (10 november) gezegd dat de V.S. aan de rand staat van een ernstige economische correctie (eufemisme voor serieuze recessie). Hij zegt verder dat de V.S. al tientallen jaren boven zijn stand leeft en dat door de oorlog met Irak en de oorlog tegen het terrorisme de situatie (o.a. begrotingstekort) volledig uit de hand is gelopen
Soros is verder van mening dat Fed voorzitter Bernanke de situatie onderschat.
Hij verwacht dat China de grote winnaar van de economische crisis wordt, maar ziet daar binnen 10 jaar een herhaling van een dergelijke crisis, logisch ook.

Opvallend is dat goeroe Jim Rogers, de mede oprichter van het Quantum Fund met George Soros, vorige week de aanbeveling deed de Amerikaanse Dollar te verkopen evenals Amerikaanse banken en real estate (housing) aandelen.
Daaruit kan men concluderen dat beide heren verwachten dat de dollar zakt, de krediet crisis nog maar net begonnen is, de huizenmarkt verder zal instorten, en dat China de komende jaren de 'booming market' is.
En welke valuta? Voorlopig zou ik even de Euro kiezen voor alle zekerheid.
En olie evenals de base metals, want er blijft groei. De precious metals bieden ook volop kansen, er staat niet voor niets een grafiekje van het "Returns of Sensex & Gold" op de voorpagina van het Quantum Fund.