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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Leaving the eurozone would make it easier for the most distressed countries to regain competitiveness

George Soros : Preparing for the possible default or defection of three small countries from the euro does not mean that those countries would necessarily be abandoned. On the contrary, the possibility of an orderly default – financed by the other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund – would offer Greece and Portugal policy choices. Moreover, it would end the vicious cycle – now threatening all of the eurozone’s deficit countries – whereby austerity weakens their growth prospects, leading investors to demand prohibitively high interest rates and thus forcing their governments to cut spending further. Leaving the eurozone would make it easier for the most distressed countries to regain competitiveness. But, if they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices, they could also remain: the EFSF would protect their domestic bank deposits, and the IMF would help to recapitalize their banking systems, which would help these countries escape from their current trap. Either way, it is not in the European Union’s interest to allow these countries to collapse and drag down the entire global banking system with them.- in www.project-syndicate.org
GEORGE SOROS BLOG

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George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1930. His father was taken prisoner during World War I and eventually fled from captivity in Russia to reunite with his family in Budapest. Soros was thirteen years old when Hitler's Wehrmacht seized Hungary and began deporting the country's Jews to extermination camps. In 1946, as the Soviet Union was taking control of the country, Soros attended a conference in the West and defected. He emigrated in 1947 to England, supported himself by working as a railroad porter and a restaurant waiter, graduated in 1952 from the London School of Economics, and obtained an entry-level position with an investment bank.

In 1956, Soros immigrated to the United States, working as a trader and analyst until 1963. During that time, he developed his own theory of markets called 'reflexivity', which he has laid out in his recent books THE ALCHEMY OF FINANCE and THE CREDIT CRISIS OF 2008 AND WHAT IT MEANS. In 1967 he helped establish an offshore investment fund; and in 1973 he set up a private investment firm that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund, one of the first hedge funds, through which he accumulated a vast fortune.