George Soros: Eurozone Crisis, 'Similar To Soviet Union,' Has Potential To Destroy European Union

Billionaire investor George Soros is sounding the European alarm again.

“Europe is similar to the Soviet Union in the way that the euro crisis has the potential of destroying, undermining the European Union,” he said during a debate on Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. “With the profound social, economic and moral crisis that Europe is in, we can see a similar process of disintegration.”

With the rise of mass unemployment and decline of consumer purchasing power, the eurozone crisis remains alive and well. European countries have been cutting down on government spending to deal with prolonged debts loads, but these new austerity measures have in part led to further contraction of some European economies. Riots have subsequently erupted in multiple countries, most notably Greece, one of the hardest hit by the debt crisis.

The Soviet Union collapsed about two decades ago, after corruption and deep-seated economic problems that were long denied and covered up by the Communist Party became exposed. These revelations undermined the public's confidence in the system, ultimately leading to its demise.

Soros' most recent remarks echo sentiments he voiced during a Newsweek interview earlier this year when he similarly compared the increasing lack of faith in the world markets' ability to regulate themselves to the decline of communism.

The billionaire investor, who also delivers lectures and writes books about financial markets, has decried for months now the fiscal policies of government leaders and warned against impending class warfare, particularly in Europe. Austerity measures at a time of low demand, he has said, will deflate wages and increase unemployment, the consequence of which could be the repression of angry masses at the hands of political leaders.

"The deflationary debt trap threatens to destroy a still-incomplete political union," Soros wrote in the Financial Times about two weeks ago.