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Amazing … article in Economic Times of India gives a better content of interview than CNN itself! The U.S. were consuming 6-7% more than they were producing, leading to globalization of markets based on debt spending. Reality has set in and will cause dramatic change for America.
WASHINGTON: Billionaire investor George Soros predicted on Sunday that the financial crisis would mean the end of a US-led market system that has dominated the global economy with debt and deregulation since the 1980s.
Soros blamed the turmoil on the faith in market forces that began under President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a generation ago. The notion that markets are self-correcting led to a massive expansion of debt financing that culminated in the sub-prime mortgages that epitomized the easy-money mentality at the root of the disaster.
- “This belief became the dominant creed. And this, then, led to the globalization of markets, the deregulation of markets and the increased use of leverage and all the financial engineering. This whole enormous construct is built on false conceptions.”
“The age of Reaganism is over, the no-regulation, low-taxes (philosophy) has broken the back of our economy. We now have to get serious about reconstructing normal government that pays its way and a normal financial sector that’s properly regulated.”
LONDON (Global Finance Jul/Aug 1999) – A third of the wealth of the world’s richest individuals, or about $6 trillion, is held offshore. Some 5-10% of this, or 400 billion of assets, is thought to be stashed on the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man, where an estimated 100,000 offshore companies are registered.
Last year the United Kingdom’s home secretary, Jack Straw, commissioned a review on the offshore financial centers on the islands, following criticism of their secrecy, their allegedly lax enforcement of regulations, and their poor cooperation with other jurisdictions. The islands were thought to have become a soft option for international money launderers, and Russian gangsters.
The report made 158 recommendations for changes to the regulatory regime on Jersey, the largest offshore center. Those recommendations are now being assessed by the island’s Financial Services Commission. But its director general, Richard Pratt, is upbeat: After all, the report’s conclusions were pretty positive. The recommendations only tweak the island’s existing regulations governing financial services, a sector that comprises about EUR100 billion in bank deposits and accounts for more than 60% of the island’s economy. Jersey has one registered company for every 2.7 residents and a vast service industry has sprung up, involving lawyers, solicitors, accountants, and banks. Jersey makes so much money that islanders enjoy a standard of living 25% higher than that on the mainland.
Pratt is right to be relieved.The report gives the regulator a relatively clean bill of health and makes no recommendations on changing the island’s tax-free status. The British Canal Islands are in the “top division of offshore centers.”
Competition regulator brings charges against 4th-richest Australian (namesake Richard Pratt)
EU finance ministers critizise U.S. response to financial crisis at IMF meeting
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."