British banks have just five working days to show they have "got it". On Saturday, they must submit to the regulator – the FSA – their planned bonus awards, widely estimated to total £6bn. Prince Andrew may have said in an interview that he regards this sum as "minute in the scheme of things", but, as the economy still falters and unemployment rises, it was clear last night that the banks will grant themselves their billions in an increasingly hostile atmosphere Stop the fat-cat bonuses! George Soros turns on the bankers
In an economic crisis like this, billionaires like George Soros can't just sit idly by
Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor, interviewed George Soros, the fund manager, about the state of the world economy, relations between the US and China, his investment performance and regulating bankers’ compensation. This is a transcript of that interview.
In an economic crisis like this, billionaires like George Soros can't just sit idly by Those earnings are not the achievement of risk-takers ... These are gifts, hidden gifts, from the government. Soros said there was a need to regulate payments to employees, even if that meant banks found it difficult to retain talented risk-takers...
That would push the risk-takers who are good at taking risks out of Goldman Sachs into hedge funds, where they actually belong, because hedge funds take risks with their own capital, not with deposits and not with government guarantees.
Soros also said he believed the decline of the U.S. dollar would be limited by its tie to the Chinese currency. "As long as the renminbi is tied to the dollar, I don't see how the decline in the dollar can go too far.
There is a general lack of confidence in currencies and a move away from currencies into real assets ... There is a push in gold, there's a strength in oil and that is a flight from currencies.
Soros said the rally in the U.S. stock market would continue for the rest of the year, but warned that the hope of a rapid recovery in the U.S. is misplaced.
• Transcript: George Soros interview; [George Soros – one of the riches men in the world, the convicted insider trader, the man who single handedly brought down one of the biggest bank in Hungary, the man who back’s far left groups like MoveOn, the man who bragged that he bought the 2008 presidential and congressional elections – and heart throb of MSNBC, is mouthing off again – and this time about Wall Street Profits in the Financial Times. Soros gifts’ from the state; Google soros; George Soros Shares Latest Insights on Economics and Politics]
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