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Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

theguardian.com

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Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#11

Post by mc32 »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #3

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

He's an interesting guy no doubt, but accounts tell us he was just doing his job. When he went to Germany and tried to force their hands by feigning he might grexit, to his amazement the private response was more or less, how can we help you gtecit? Despite appearances, he did not want grexit and was a ploy to get better terms, but the ecb had already discounted Greece.

At least he tried, for sure.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#12

Post by shkkmo »

pif wrote: post #6
IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #3

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

Why? What did he do, apart from letting the Greeks believe they could choose not to refund the debt?

Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. When that proved to be impossible, he refused to sit by and lend his name to a deal he didn't believe was in Greece or Europe's best interests.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#13

Post by elorant »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #3

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

As a Greek I consider him a jerk. He enforced capital controls due to his incompetence and his ideological approach to financing. Furthermore, he's a pathological liar. While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them.

If it wasn't for the group of clowns that constitute the current government and gave him the keys to the economy, nobody would give a flying fuck about what he says. He's a second rate economist at best.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#14

Post by _pmf_ »

andy_ppp wrote: post #9
pif wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What did he do, apart from letting the Greeks believe they could choose not to refund the debt?

Morally it's on those who give out loans to make sure that they can be repaid. It's wrong that Greece took these huge loans as well, but also it's wrong to suggest that they have to pay them back. Everyone has the option to default when they are unable to pay and this was clearly the situation for Greece (and probably Spain and Italy, maybe even UK soon enough).

Exactly. The (German) banks gambled on a bail out; I would not even call it a gamble, since the could be dead sure Schäuble would be standing at attention with the suitcases at the first sign of trouble.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#15

Post by sgift »

emptyfile wrote: post #10
candiodari wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he fell on his blade when it became clear Greece wasn't going to default.

So quitting politics, in fact retiring, in fact bailing on Greece, to write books and give interviews to Sky is enough to make him an hero to Europe's working class?

> in fact bailing on Greece

When politicians stay it's always "bah, bah, no one ever takes responsibility". Now, someone took responsibility and it's "bailing on Greece".

Yeah. Sure.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#17

Post by ferongr »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #3

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

He's not a hero to this one Greek of the "working class". All he managed to do during his tenure was set in montion a series of events that would greatly worsen the financial condition of Greece.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#18

Post by ferongr »

sgift wrote: post #15
emptyfile wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So quitting politics, in fact retiring, in fact bailing on Greece, to write books and give interviews to Sky is enough to make him an hero to Europe's working class?

> in fact bailing on Greece When politicians stay it's always "bah, bah, no one ever takes responsibility". Now, someone took responsibility and it's "bailing on Greece". Yeah. Sure.

What kind of responsibility did V-man take? He retired to an academic's cushy life of traveling around the world giving lectures and writing.

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#19

Post by krona »

elorant wrote: post #13
IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #3

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

As a Greek I consider him a jerk. He enforced capital controls due to his incompetence and his ideological approach to financing. Furthermore, he's a pathological liar. While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them. If it wasn't for the group of clowns that constitute the current government and gave him the keys to the economy, nobody would g…

> While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them.

By doing what, exactly? The country was bankrupt. In such a situation, the only sensible thing to do is default. Instead, Greece will be a 3rd world country with almost no public assets, and mass unemployment for decades.

Regaining competitiveness through decades of internal devaluation is, to me, far less preferable than default. What Greece was given was like Versailles on steroids.

And to make it worse, it's going to happen again, and again. I'd say we're due another club-med crisis any moment now. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/european-debt-bomb-...

Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis

#20

Post by arethuza »

Scea91 wrote: post #4
osullivj wrote: post #2

"The first revelation is that not only was Greece bankrupt in 2010 when the EU bailed it out, and that the bailout was designed to save the French and German banks, but that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy knew this; and they knew it would be a disaster." The treasury departments of the French and German banks had loaded up on GGBs - Greek Govt Bonds because they yielded more basis points than eg German Govt bonds,…

Didn't Greece falsify data for years? That would explain the AAA ratings.

They did get "help" from Golman Sachs to come up with numbers that allowed them to enter the Euro in the first place:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-debt-cr...

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