Famous philanthropist and billionaire George Soros recently proposed a way for Europe to deal with the costs incurred by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic via what Forbes describes as "forever debt", delivering his idea via a Q&A "in which his staff asked the questions, rather than a journalist".
According to the magazine, Soros is referring to a form of perpetual bonds known as consols, first issued by the Bank of England back in the 18th century, with the billionaire suggesting that their modern-day edition could involve "trillion dollar sums where the principal amount never needs to be repaid" and "only the annual interest payments are due."
He also described the coronavirus as a threat to "the survival of our civilization", and lamented about the alleged vulnerability of the European Union which is based on the "rule of law" and "the wheels of justice" that turn "proverbially slowly", while "the coronavirus moves very fast and in unpredictable ways."
"As long as I can come up with ideas like perpetual bonds, I don’t give up hope", Soros added, with the magazine noting that he appeared to have taken credit "for an idea more than a century old".
Soros' suggestions come as euro, the currency of the European Union, displayed the worst performance amid the currencies of the Group of Ten leading Western industrialized countries since mid-March, Bloomberg notes, blaming this development on the EU's "failure to rally together against the pandemic".
The European Commission previously warned that the current crisis might threaten the very stability of the bloc.