Soros: The Worst Is Behind Us

Paul Krugman says it’s not over. A couple months ago, the International Monetary Fund also said this recession will be "unusually long and severe." But one influential money man says things are looking up.

George Soros, billionaire financier and philanthropist, who famously got rich shorting the pound, thinks things can only go up from here. Soros said in an interview with a Polish news outlet, via Reuters, "the worst is already behind us."

Soros said the world economy up until now had been running on the false assumption that markets could fix themselves. Now that bubble has burst and Soros said he is supportive of the U.S. government’s moves to clean up the mess with increased regulation over financial institutions and added that international regulations were needed as well. He also noted that government intervention was necessary to shore up capital at large institutions (though they should remove themselves once lending had loosened in order to avoid the risk of inflation).

While Krugman is eating the green shoots, Soros says, they’re growing.