Soros: Why Germany Should Lead or Leave

After initial dislocations, the eventual outcome would fulfill John Maynard Keynes’ dream of an international currency system in which both creditors and debtors share responsibility for maintaining stability. And Europe would avert the looming depression.

The same result could be achieved, with less cost to Germany, if Germany chose to behave as a benevolent hegemon. That would mean implementing the proposed European banking union; establishing a more or less level playing field between debtor and creditor countries by establishing a Debt Reduction Fund, and eventually converting all debt into Eurobonds; and aiming at nominal GDP growth of up to 5%, so that Europe could grow its way out of excessive indebtedness.

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Berlin has giving its backing to the European Central Bank's new bond-buying program to lower struggling euro zone countries' borrowing costs, which Germany's central bank has criticized.
Soros said the plan would likely buy Europe "a longer period than previous measures that were taken." "It's a more dramatic move," he added, but he predicted that Spain and Italy would not apply to be part of the program.
What Europe needed more was some form of common euro zone bond, which was currently not acceptable to Germany.
"Secondly it needs to be able to grow, you need a growth program, and that is again not what Germany is imposing on Europe," Soros said.
Soros, 82, drew a parallel with the financial crisis of 1982, when lenders protected the international banking system by lending debtor countries just enough to service their debts, pushing them into severe austerity programs that led to depression.
"It was the lost decade for Latin America and something very similar is happening now in the euro situation, where Germany is actually playing the same role within the euro as the IMF did within the global financial system," Soros said.
"This policy is pushing Europe into a depression which is going to last five or 10 years."

http://news.yahoo.com/germany-back-growth-leave-euro-soros-162813156--finance.html

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growth program: ΜΟΠ των '80ς του Αντρέα; τώρα "υπάρχει" το ΕΣΠΑ, συνεπώς επιθυμεί κάτι επιπλέον