A very interesting talk was recently given by George Soros at the London School of Economics on the credit crisis. He also answered a question outlining why oil and commodities prices were so high. A video of his talk (54 minutes long) can be accessed at the following link: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/live/20080311t1554z001.htm
Interesting, thanks for the link, but we already know all this stuff (or we should by now) - still nice to see it verbalized into 1 hour conversation tho. He reminds me of Paulson, in that for every word he says, he's got 5 uhs, uhms, and erhs before he gets the next word out....for someone who knows his stuff inside and out, he has the same difficulty expressing himself - highly irritating!! [long deutschmark when it decouples from euro]
Nothing new. A couple of important points I thought. (1) This subprime crisis is no where near over. Soros is expecting at least 12 months more of falling house prices. I have been thinking along similar lines myself. As I believe it takes time for the truth to come out and we don't yet know the full extent of the damage. Won't be as bad as the depression, but a fairly bad time nonetheless. This is, of course, against the current optimistic thinking by some that we have avoided a recession. (2) Although, most countries will be affected some countries in Europe, like Germany, will probably weather the storm better due to lack of house price appreciation in the last few years. (3) He cited four factors causing the high price of oil and commodities. Although speculation is one of those factors it is only one factor. A point I have been trying to make in the face of those that argue the price of oil has been driven 100% by speculation. Interesting to see him speak in person for an extended period.