“It’s now a lose-lose game and the best that can happen is actually muddling through,” investor George Soros, 84, told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.
“Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all
parties.”
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government needs to persuade its creditors to sign off on a package of economic measures to free up long-withheld aid payments that will keep the country afloat. The leader has tried since January to shape an alternative to the austerity program outlined in the nation’s bailout deal, driving concerns that it may be forced out of the euro.
The talks between Tsipras’s leftist government and the so-called Troika - institutions helping finance the Greek economy, the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - could result in a “breakdown,” leading to the country leaving the common currency area, Soros said in the interview at his London home.
“You can keep on pushing it back indefinitely,” making
interest payments without writing down debt, Soros said. “But
in the meantime there will be no primary surplus because Greece
is going down the drain.”
Soros also said that the launch of quantitative easing by the ECB at a time when
the U.S. Federal Reserve is considering raising interest rates
“creates currency fluctuations,” said Soros, one of the
world’s wealthiest men. “That probably creates some great opportunities for hedge
funds but I’m no longer in that business,” he said, adding that the war in the East of Ukraine disturbs him the most.
