George Soros gives thoughts on the euro's future

In five short but pithy words financier George Soros recently caused a huge stir that set politicians and bankers arguing from Europe to the US and International Monetary Fund - "Germany must lead or leave" the euro, he declares in the New York Review of Books in a "must-read" article analysing how the European dream risks turning into a nightmare.

Soros knows a thing or two about currencies and markets. He became a legend as "the man who broke the Bank of England", making US$1.1 billion by betting against the British pound in 1992 when it was forced to devalue and leave the European exchange rate mechanism, the forerunner to the creation of the euro.

These days Soros has become more of a philosopher and philanthropist, giving away US$8 billion to good causes. In his new role he brings decades of understanding about economies, currencies and markets and ways they dance with disaster.

He has become not so much of a guru but more of oracle warning of the dangers of the way the global economy is heading. His article was entitled grimly: The tragedy of the European Union and how to resolve it.

Since he wrote it, leaders of the euro zone have repeated the mantra that the euro is safe and taken some steps to safeguard it.

Soros says in an updated internet preface to his article that the promise of Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, to buy unlimited quantities of government bonds of debtor countries of up to three years in maturity means that, "the continued survival of the euro is assured".