Perhaps if he had said something to this effect back in 2008, the problem might have been addressed, if not necessarily averted:
George Soros, the billionaire investor, believes the banking sector is a “parasite” holding back the economic recovery and an “incestuous” relationship with regulators means little has been done to resolve the issues behind the 2008 crisis.
“The banking sector is acting as a parasite on the real economy,” Mr Soros said in his new book “The Tragedy of the European Union”.
“The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. For a while 35pc of all corporate profits in the United Kingdom and the United States came from the financial sector. That’s absurd.”
Mr Soros outlined how the problems that caused the Eurozone economic crisis remain largely unresolved.
“Very little has been done to correct the excess leverage in the European banking system. The equity in the banks relative to their balance sheets is wafer thin, and that makes them very vulnerable. The issue of “too big to fail” has not been solved at all.”
I don’t recall Mr. Soros opposing the 2008 banking bailout. It’s not as if the intrinsically parasitical nature of the finance industry is news to anyone of Mr. Soros’s stature and occupation. No economy can expect to grow as long as a significant percentage of the profits produced are skimmed by the monetary middlemen, for the obvious reason that the middlemen produce nothing.