Speaking on the second day of the World Economic Forum 2022 meeting in Davos, George Soros explained that carbonization is still the overriding enemy, and that the world cannot even afford dragging out a long conflict with Russia in Ukraine. Putin must be defeated immediately, so as to get back to the necessary decarbonization war. “While the war rages, the fight against climate change has to take second place. Yet the experts tell us that we have already fallen far behind, and climate change is on the verge of becoming irreversible. That could be the end of our civilization. Therefore, we must mobilize all our resources to bring the war to an early end. The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line.”
Soros went on to explain the mistakes of Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Putin had started to believe that launching the operation was a mistake and was supposedly ready to negotiate a ceasefire. However, that must not be allowed. “[T]he ceasefire is unattainable because he cannot be trusted. The weaker Putin gets, the more unpredictable he becomes.”
Soros slammed the “zero-COVID” policy of Xi, claiming it failed. (Translation: spending money to save lives is a failure.) He claimed that, in addition to the COVID-19 policy, Xi has made a number of other errors that could cost him. “Contrary to general expectations, Xi Jinping may not get his coveted third term because of the mistakes he has made. But even if he does, the Politburo may not give him a free hand to select the members of the next Politburo.”
Yet somehow these mistaken leaders are getting ahead. “Repressive regimes are now in the ascendant and open societies are under siege. Today China and Russia present the greatest threat to open society.”
However, it appears that the open societies get confused by the closed societies. Soros: “Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels remains excessive, due largely to the mercantilist policies pursued by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. She had made special deals with Russia for the supply of gas and made China Germany’s largest export market. That made Germany the best performing economy in Europe but now there is a heavy price to pay. Germany’s economy needs to be reoriented.” Evidently, in an open society, that makes sense.
Finally, Soros revealed that he has sent a letter to Mario Draghi, as the one who can lead the EU to implement a tax on Russian gas. Hence, consumer prices will not fall. (That’s a good thing in the open society.) Thereby, Moscow gets less money and the EU gets an income flow to help finance the green transition. (https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/davos-address-open-society-against-russia-china-by-george-soros-2022-05; https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/24/ukraine-invasion-may-be-start-of-third-world-war-says-george-soros)
