Game on at Davos

Or, the Roman Colosseum.

Donald Trump's administration is "a danger to the world" and is attempting to "establish a mafia state", according to a speech by financier and philanthropist George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

  IB times

Actually, as I mentioned before, Trump's whining about Palestine being disrespectful to the US, does sond like mob talk. You have to wonder how any organization could function with him at the top, though.

Soros told the audience that the US Constitution, other institutions and "a vibrant civil society" are standing in the way of Trump's plans.

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Soros told the audience that the US Constitution, other institutions and "a vibrant civil society" are standing in the way of Trump's plans.

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The billionaire also took aim at monopolistic technology and social media companies, which "while once liberating, are now socially damaging". He said that the power to "shape people's minds" now lies in the hands of a few companies, and that those without freedom of mind can be easily manipulated. In another attack on Trump, Soros pointed to the 2016 presidential elections as an example of this.

The billionaire also took aim at monopolistic technology and social media companies, which "while once liberating, are now socially damaging". He said that the power to "shape people's minds" now lies in the hands of a few companies, and that those without freedom of mind can be easily manipulated. In another attack on Trump, Soros pointed to the 2016 presidential elections as an example of this.

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One solution would be a "multi-track" approach to EU membership, in which member states are free to form coalitions of the willing to pursue particular goals in which they agree.

The EU should also drop the requirement for member states to adopt the euro, Soros said, as "I would like to see Britain remain a member of the EU or eventually rejoin it, and that couldn't happen if it meant adopting the euro".

George Soros knows infinitely more about finance than I do, but I think the idea of the Euro was not such a bad one. The problem was that it was not applied equally to all members. That's one of the things that caused Greece to fall. A euro from a Greek bank was not equivalent in strength and favor as a euro from a German bank. Greece's once finance minister who quit once Greece's president decided to go along with the EU austerity proram, does know as much - and maybe more - about finance than George Soros, and this is what he had to say:

Varoufakis: Well, imagine if in the United States you treated people from Arizona as non-Americans or as people that must fend for themselves and whose banking system is their own problem. Then you wouldn't be having the United States of America.

Brancaccio: And that's the conundrum that Europe is still in. It didn't fix it.

Varoufakis: Indeed, we created the common currency, but did not create everything else which is necessary not to make the common currency a place of shared prosperity.

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Brancaccio: Just so we know a piece of the story, what did the finance minister of Germany want to do but his chancellor wouldn't let them do?

Varoufakis: Wolfgang Schaeuble, decades ago, was a committed federalist, but a combination of Angela Merkel — who usurped him and effectively stole, that's in his view, the prime ministership, the chancellorship from him, as well as the French, did not want a proper federation.

They wanted all the benefits from a common currency, but without the obligations of a federal democratic political system. Schaeuble was against that. But over the years, he became a cynical man, using the finance ministry to do that which he would have wanted to do as the chancellor of Germany.

  Marketplace