64/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
In a Financial Times op-ed piece run on 1 January 1998, Soros talks
about the general Implications of the Southeast Asian crisis. He
makes a number of pertinent remarks:
The International financial system Is suffering from a systemic
crisis but we have difficulties recognising this. The elimination of
fixed exchange rates has unleashed an uncontrollable process that
has surpassed people's worst fears, Including my own. The rescue
packages assembled by the IMF are not producing any results. ...
The concerned countries have too much debt.... The private sector
Is Incapable of allocating International credit In the right doses. It
provides too much or too little. It doesn't have sufficient
Information for making balanced judgements. Above all, the
private sector Is not concerned with maintaining macro-economic
equilibriums In the borrower countries. Its goal Is maximising Its
own profits and minimising risk.A few days later, Soros was the new South Korean president's guest
of honour. He said that, after withdrawing his South Korean
Investments In 1997 (which helped provoke the crisis), he was
planning new Investments In the country. This Is the way he
cynically applies the rule of 'maximum profit-minimum risk'. In
response to a journalist's question over who had been right - the
welcoming South Korean president or the angry Malaysian prime
minister - he replied In an equally cynical manner, 'One or the other
Is clearly mistaken' (International Herald Tribune, 3 January 1998).
To be sure, Soros and his Quantum Fund are not omnipotent. But
they often play a key role In times of crisis by spearheading
speculative attacks. At times, Soros blazes a trail for the really big
players - the pension funds, mutual funds, Insurance houses and
other Institutional Investors.