Het Neoliberale Geloof 92

'Soros Sees End of Dollar as World's Reserve Currency (Update2)
By Edward Evans and Simon Kennedy

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor George Soros said the fallout from the U.S. subprime crisis will bring about the end of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.

``The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency,'' Soros said in a debate today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.''

The dollar's share of global foreign-exchange reserves fell to a record low of 63.8 percent in the third quarter as demand for U.S. assets waned after the collapse of the U.S. housing market, according to International Monetary Fund data. It accounted for 65 percent three months earlier. The euro's share rose to 26.4 percent from 25.5 percent. IMF quarterly figures go back to 1999, the year the euro was introduced.

The U.S. currency has dropped 11 percent against the euro and 13 percent against the yen in the past year. It has declined in five of the past six years.

Soros made $1 billion in 1992 betting against the pound, forcing the British government to abandon a peg to a basket of European currencies. He was also the biggest financial backer of the failed effort to deny President George W. Bush a second term in office. The euro has gained 55 percent against the dollar since Bush entered the White House on Jan. 21, 2001.

`Gone Too Far'

``From the 1980s we had the belief in the magic of the marketplace, and the authorities were so successful that they started to believe in this market fundamentalism,'' he said. ``That's gone too far.'' In times of crisis, ``they suspended the rules and they bailed out the banks. That created an asymmetric incentive system, a moral hazard, that allowed the expansion of credit.'''

Lees verder: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&refer=currency&sid=aaqgpmbosZVM

Soros: ''From the 1980s we had the belief in the magic of the marketplace, and the authorities were so successful that they started to believe in this market fundamentalism,'' he said. ``That's gone too far.'' Wie is 'we'? Not us, want wij geloofden niet in die nonsense. Wie erin geloofden waren en zijn nog steeds politici, van links zowel als rechts, managers van de grote concerns, bankiers en andere parasieten en uitvreters, kortom de mensen die al al dan niet democratisch boven ons gesteld zijn, kennelijk in de overtuiging dat ze slimmer zijn dan wij. Maar het enige dat ze zijn, is meedogenlozer dan een fatsoenlijk mens. Ze gedragen zich als schurken en asocialen. Ze verwoesten onze aarde met hun onverzadigbare begeerte, ze zijn pathologische gevallen, die eens per jaar bijeen komen in Davos. Ook journalisten mogen eraan meedoen, als ze door de cooptatierondes zijn gekomen. Dat betekent dat ze betrouwbaar zijn voor de hierboven beschreven boeven. Dat soort journalisten zijn niet meer dan lakeien. Ben benieuwd wie van mijn collega's er dit jaar bij mag zitten. Wanneer komt u nu eens in opstand? Als de geschiedenis uw voordeur binnenmarcheert? Maar dan is het te laat.