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Soros: Obama "Lost a Great Opportunity" to Fix the Banks

Posted Apr 09, 2009 07:17am EDT by Aaron Task in Newsmakers, Banking

George Soros was an early and avid supporter of Barack Obama, so it's probably no surprise he gives the President high marks for his handling of international affairs, the stimulus package, the budget (the famed financier calls it "very courageous") and for "stabilizing" the financial crisis.

But President Obama "lost a great opportunity" by not taking a more radical approach in dealing with the banks, Soros says. "There's too much continuity with the bumbling and mishandling by the previous administration. Not enough discontinuity."

Specifically, Soros wanted Obama to "come out of the gate with a well considered plan" to recapitalize the banks, rather than continuing with the TARP and related bailouts. But the President may have been hampered by his desire to create consensus, Soros says. "The nature of far from equilibrium situations is that public understanding is always lagging behind events. If you're guided by desire to have consensus, you'll always be a little bit slow."

Essentially, Soros believes we should be following the so-called Swedish solution but fears we are heading down the same policy path as Japan. "We're effectively keeping zombie banks alive," he says.

To those who rail about the dangers of nationalizing banks, Soros says: "You have to recapitalize the banks for them to function. As it is, we are nationalizing the debt of the banks, but not the banks themselves."

Check the accompanying video for more and to hear Soros' take on Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.

Earlier:

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336 Comments

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 07:39AM EDT

In another month the banks will have more substantial capital from interest revenues. Next the profit of the stimulus will cause Fannie and Freddie to rise from the ashes. And finally the tax payer will see a more positive future projection of return on the capital injection. Most Americans are finally realizing this was all 'temporary but necessary'.

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 07:45AM EDT

Soros is probably short and is talking down the economy and markets for his own shelfish reasons. This guy is a snake.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 07:50AM EDT

SOROS = Same-O-ReallyOl-Socialist. SOROS IS joined at the hip-pocket with all these guys in government,banking,and wall street. He wants to "Suck" out the working mans income thru taxes out of their pockets with higher income tax, higher sales and gas tax, higher cigarette tax, higher property tax, higher capital gains tax...... Socialism = control of the masses; all become "dependent" on the government, for incomes jobs housing transportation healthcare.... It is all about "government control", and elimination of individual freedoms. Socialism Owns You.!!! Socialists like Soros, stand in the background and get "paid" for this "control" by the millions and (billions?) of taxpayers money. Obama has never run a business, he does not know how to run a company.And either does Congress !! Soros is in the "background" pulling all the strings, with the money elitists. They Want Your Taxes!!

- Thursday April 09, 2009 07:59AM EDT

And Soros missed a great opportunity to go out on top. Instead he lingers around like a bad fungus. Time for his negativity to retire.

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 08:05AM EDT

The market bottomed 2 and 1/2 years after the October 1929 crash. "Even though stocks had already fallen dramatically since the October 1929 market crash, investors who bought in January 1931 were down another 71% by May 1932." - http://preview.tinyurl.com/thebottom

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:07AM EDT

Sure the banks will loan money again soon...at two points a week, if you qualify.

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 08:16AM EDT

We all know Soros is serving HIS AGENDAS. All talk about zombie banks. Well Soros, few months have passed, we dont hear that these banks begging for additional bailout money. In fact Goldman Sachs wanted to return these bailout funds as soon as possible. I am sure it is a matter of months or years that these 'zombie' banks realise that bailout money is no free lunch. If i were Obama, i will suck all the profits from these banks so that they wont be able to pay back the borrowed bailout money. I will appointed my own people to run these banks and force them to merge into one big banks and called it "Sucker Bank".

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:17AM EDT

Morose Soros, get a job man. Why do people pay to listen to guys like this.

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 08:20AM EDT

James J. Donovan I have been asked repeatedly to unveil "The People's Plan". I never do because the American people do not put enough into one another to stop this governemental freight train. The one that left the station back at the start of the recession, which history will validate, actually began in the first quarter of 2007. I will be the first on record to state; The United States of America officially entered a period of Depression on February 10, 2009. True Unemployment - Exceeds 15% True Wage Growth (dollar adjusted) - negative True Debt - 15 Trillion and Counting Bond Holders of major banks still being paid. 98% of banks are insolvent (Mark to Market is nonsense) Currency Creation pinnacled in the 3rd quarter of 2006. The largest private bank in the world (The Federal Reserve Corp) is overloaded with Treasuries that will have tremendous Yen exposure after the summer. Many of these same treasuries have been pledged, rehypothecated or outright injected into LLC's established between the private Federal Reserve Corp. and JP Morgan Chase, Federal Reserve Corp. and AIG (Please see Maiden Lane LLC & Maiden Lane I, - Maiden Lane IIII. They are not deleveraging (sic) from toxic assets they are shuffling them. The next stage is this debacle has been set. The suspension of "Mark to Market" accounting allows the commercial banks to revolve non-performing loans amongst one another, utilizing tax payer dollars to create the smoke and mirros. Treasury has gone one step further, they are now recaptilizing the nations hedge funds, that through zero regulation, would make the commercial banking mess look like the proverbial "walk in the park", also being accomplished with US tax dollars. There is a solution. It would spread the responsibility of this mess back to the bond holders of these defunct banks, but it would spare US citizens the brunt. It is called "The People's Plan". It is a defined directive that would put this Country back onto the road of prosperity almost overnight. The downside is that it would also include the the liquidation of some of our largest banks including; The Federal Reserve Corp, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, and my personal favorite, Citiscam. The tax filing deadline is in a couple days. Every cent of this money collected from US Taxpayers will be used to pay the interest on The FRC inspired national debt. It is time to issue interest free Congressional notes! If you have interest in "The People's Plan" just post a shipping address or an e-mail.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:21AM EDT

James J. Donovan I have been asked repeatedly to unveil "The People's Plan". I never do because the American people do not put enough into one another to stop this governemental freight train. The one that left the station back at the start of the recession, which history will validate, actually began in the first quarter of 2007. I will be the first on record to state; The United States of America officially entered a period of Depression on February 10, 2009. True Unemployment - Exceeds 15% True Wage Growth (dollar adjusted) - negative True Debt - 15 Trillion and Counting Bond Holders of major banks still being paid. 98% of banks are insolvent (Mark to Market is nonsense) Currency Creation pinnacled in the 3rd quarter of 2006. The largest private bank in the world (The Federal Reserve Corp) is overloaded with Treasuries that will have tremendous Yen exposure after the summer. Many of these same treasuries have been pledged, rehypothecated or outright injected into LLC's established between the private Federal Reserve Corp. and JP Morgan Chase, Federal Reserve Corp. and AIG (Please see Maiden Lane LLC & Maiden Lane I, - Maiden Lane IIII. They are not deleveraging (sic) from toxic assets they are shuffling them. The next stage is this debacle has been set. The suspension of "Mark to Market" accounting allows the commercial banks to revolve non-performing loans amongst one another, utilizing tax payer dollars to create the smoke and mirros. Treasury has gone one step further, they are now recaptilizing the nations hedge funds, that through zero regulation, would make the commercial banking mess look like the proverbial "walk in the park", also being accomplished with US tax dollars. There is a solution. It would spread the responsibility of this mess back to the bond holders of these defunct banks, but it would spare US citizens the brunt. It is called "The People's Plan". It is a defined directive that would put this Country back onto the road of prosperity almost overnight. The downside is that it would also include the the liquidation of some of our largest banks including; The Federal Reserve Corp, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, and my personal favorite, Citiscam. The tax filing deadline is in a couple days. Every cent of this money collected from US Taxpayers will be used to pay the interest on The FRC inspired national debt. It is time to issue interest free Congressional notes! If you have interest in "The People's Plan" just post a shipping address or an e-mail.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:26AM EDT

We already have a sucker bank. It is called the Federal reserve Corp. The largest private bank in the world. As long as their charter exists, the American People will be nelsaved to their worthless currency. Case Closed

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 08:27AM EDT

Agreed - Soros is a snake and an interventionist. One beef with liberals, socialists etc is their approach to every problem - public (government) involvement in what should be private markets and business. Health is a good example. They create government programs with bottomless pockets (tax money) and point to the failures of the system as public money skews and fouls the system or part of the economy they have entered. "More is needed..." while "more" fouls it more and at an increasing rate. I still support term limits for all elected officials.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:30AM EDT

I'm tired of hearing about this hypocrite. His goal is simply to prevent regular people from attaining wealth so he can have it all for himself. While he was attacking Bush and Cheney, he was gobbling up millions of shares of Halliburton. It's easy to sit around an pontificate when you have not a care in the world. I don't understand how the same people that criticized Romney for being "out of touch" with his fortune, blindly follow this a-hole. Soros is a globalist that doesn't give two squirts about the U.S. He'll use the U.S as it suits him, but his survival is not dependent on it. It's clowns like him that are running around pushing class warfare.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:32AM EDT

The concept of recapitalizing is reasonable. So is trying to rid debt from banks. If you are going to recapitalize, why not give every person in the US $100,000 dollars? And that would have the same effect as recapitalizing the banks. Much money would go into the banks in many forms. Paying debt, allowing more to be lent. People depositing it. Allowing people to catch up on Mortgages and credit cards. And giving monies for people to invest in enterprises. The down side would be inflation. But the current cures will cause that anyway. And would money not be better in the peoples hands rather than a controling uncontrolable behemoth of a government.

Yahoo! Finance User
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday April 09, 2009 08:33AM EDT

There are two components to these financial crisis. CDO and CDS, CDO by the banks and CDS by insurer i.e. AIG. Surprisingly, we dont hear Soros mentioning about them. I am sure Obama economic teams has already come out with the solutions for these so-called 'toxic debts' and 'toxic liabilities". I am only equip with intermediate financial knowledge yet i myself can outline basic solutions to solve CDO and CDS. There are intermediate and new technologies in finance to solve this financial derivaties instrument at the same time make huge profit. Maybe Obama is laughing himself to the bank with the enormous profit to be make from this crisis.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:33AM EDT

Soros plays the world like a big chess game in which he will do anything to enrich himself at any cost. He is part of the NWO international banking elites and a spokesperson for the private banking cartel in which he partners with them to line his own pockets.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:33AM EDT

All this psycho sideways babble...renaming everything... makes one ill!!! 'Zombie banks', 'toxic assets' is babble for 'insolvent bank' with 'bad debt', and such banks can not be propped up, at least not for long. Even these guys who sound rational are pulling the wool over your eyes.

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:34AM EDT

Soros' strenght has always been his ability to see the big picture and invest accordingly.He is 80 years old and retired and has made more money than most.The problem is that people listen and try to work out some other meaning to what he is saying......they do not realise he is in fact telling it as it is....but unfortunately people only want stock tips and don't realy want to use their own intelligence but rather just follow tips like they do at the race track

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:35AM EDT

Soros' strenght has always been his ability to see the big picture and invest accordingly.He is 80 years old and retired and has made more money than most.The problem is that people listen and try to work out some other meaning to what he is saying......they do not realise he is in fact telling it as it is....but unfortunately people only want stock tips and don't realy want to use their own intelligence but rather just follow tips like they do at the race track

- Thursday April 09, 2009 08:35AM EDT

Soros' strenght has always been his ability to see the big picture and invest accordingly.He is 80 years old and retired and has made more money than most.The problem is that people listen and try to work out some other meaning to what he is saying......they do not realise he is in fact telling it as it is....but unfortunately people only want stock tips and don't realy want to use their own intelligence but rather just follow tips like they do at the race track

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