George Soros Quotes

At this time - we're in a dramatic crisis - euro bonds are precisely the wrong answer. They lead us into a debt union, not a stability union. Each country has to take its own steps to reduce its debt.

Greece could default on its debts and even exit currency bloc if it cannot deliver reforms.

The vast majority of Greeks accept the need for reform and want to keep our country inside the euro zone.

One needs a comprehensive concept that decides just how much debt states like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy can sustainably bear.

At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn't. Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe's excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

When I took over, the economy had almost collapsed. I told Malawians we needed to pass through difficult times. Two days ago I even cut my own salary by 30% to show we are making sacrifices.

Instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

In fighting the debt crisis, E.U. countries have enhanced co-operation and carried out reform with tremendous courage. This is laudable.

If we are going to approach the euro area as a zone with a harsh line in the middle between AAA and non-AAA, between the north and the south, no way are we going to move forward.

The world has conducted a massive macro-economic experiment since the cataclysm of 2008. In Europe, the fans of austerity have had their chance, and the results have been a disaster.

It is better to implement reforms in times of economic strength.

As austerity measures were foisted upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other highly indebted countries, growth was rendered even more elusive, aggravating unemployment

Since taking office in 2008, the Barrow Administration failed to stimulate the necessary economic growth. Instead they have, over the more than four years, continued on a path of borrow and spend, accumulating huge additional debts.

Greece's debt is going to be a function of a lot of factors down the road.

We saw in Greece how dangerous it is if a country has a bigger and bigger debt, and I hope that we will not have a second Greece in our neighbouring country, Italy.

There is a big problem. The problem is the country borrowed too much. We went on a borrowing binge, there was a housing boom. You want to help people de-leverage and deal with those debts over time.

It's not debt per say that overwhelms an individual corporation or country. Rather it is a continuous increase in debt in relation to income that causes trouble.

I think it's essential that we do more than talk about austerity measures and cutting.

The emphasis so far on fiscal austerity, while to a degree necessary for the countries facing market funding difficulties, is excessive when carried out across the board.

My job is to rectify the public finances and hand the country back to the people so they can really have a future, and that is what I will do.

To suggest that we can't pay our debts - that's absolutely not true.

You're not going to be able to deliver jobs locally unless you sort out the nation's problems, and that's why the big and difficult decisions about Ireland's economy have been so crucial and so difficult for people to have to accept and have to deal with, but the reality is the people gave this government an unprecedented mandate.

Both parties recognize the fundamental danger the country's debt poses to our nation's future, but President Obama's policies have not reflected that reality. By the end of his first term, his administration will have nearly doubled our public debt.

The IMF played crucial roles in the 1980s debt crisis and in the transformation of former communist economies. Radical change, many might argue, is neither necessary nor desirable.