George Soros: You have to realize that the system has broken down

 George Soros is interviewed on the Reuters Round Table and discusses the crisis, the stimulus, zombie banks, and realistic recovery expectations. (Video interview follows excerpts and comments)

What you have to realize is that the system actually has broken down…Following the Lehman Brothers default, that was a game changing event…In my book published last year I said that this is the most serious crisis of our lifetime.

But I did not actually expect the system to actually breakdown. And it had to be put on artificial life support. And, this life support doesn’t extend to the entire world.

George Soros, along with his old investment partner Jim Rogers and other trend forecasters like Gerald Celente and Peter Schiff, all believe that the crisis we are in the early stages of, will be unlike any other that we have seen in our lifetime.

I think that there’s a real danger that people don’t understand that the system was fundamentally flawed and there is no return to where we came from.

I do not expect the US economy to recover in the 3rd or 4th quarter, so I think we are in for a pretty lasting slowdown….I think that 2010 might be something. Whether we have a recovery depends on how deep we go.

While Mr. Soros was and is a big supporter of the Obama campaign and administration, he seems to be diverging from the ideas of Mr. Bernake and President Obama that there are ‘glimmers of hope’ in the economy and that ‘recovery may occur at the end of 2009.’

I think the dollar is now under question. I think the system will need to be reformed so that the United States will be subject to the same discipline as is imposed on other countries.

Watch George Soros on Reuters April 10, 2009:

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