Varoufakis has always been obsessed with his ego and rock-star status, never with Greece's problems.
What problems are you obsessed with?
Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
41–50 of 133 posts
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't Greece falsify data for years? That would explain the AAA ratings.
It borders on the impossible to fake data on this scale and in such amounts. The deficit forecast for 2009 (the year the crisis started) was 3.7 which got revised to 12.5 percent at the end of that year. Any sufficiently large institution or cooperation that wanted to have access to the real data, could have done so with minimal effort, you can't hide a 10% budget gap. The false data Greece reported to get into the E…
> It borders on the impossible to fake data on this scale and in such amounts
the more cynical among us ahem would probably say that it borders on the impossible to accurately report data on this scale and in such amounts, regardless of intention.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#43Grexit blackmail didn't work, so run away and got rich writing books.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't Greece falsify data for years? That would explain the AAA ratings.
Greece has been cooking the books for a long time, even their entrance into the EU was fradulant. Greece is the blame here via its decades of fraud that finally caught up with it. As a Greek-American with an interest in Greece being successful I think all the finger pointing at Wall Street or Germany is asinine. Greece is horribly corrupt and tax dodging is like its national sport. Its like someone turned Chicago int…
Some medium to large private investors treat ratings reports as signposts nothing more. But a disturbing proportion of investment traders / dealers seem to treat them as a tick box exercise or a "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" CYA instrument.
After one week of working on a stockbroking floor I was disabused of almost all the economics I learnt in school.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It borders on the impossible to fake data on this scale and in such amounts. The deficit forecast for 2009 (the year the crisis started) was 3.7 which got revised to 12.5 percent at the end of that year. Any sufficiently large institution or cooperation that wanted to have access to the real data, could have done so with minimal effort, you can't hide a 10% budget gap. The false data Greece reported to get into the E…
> It borders on the impossible to fake data on this scale and in such amounts the more cynical among us ahem would probably say that it borders on the impossible to accurately report data on this scale and in such amounts, regardless of intention.
The cynics would be right. I've seen financial instutions report data using poorly defined regexes on bank statements. Regexes which could easily yield false positives and negatives.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Yesterday, there was a news that Greece has reached an agreement for a new round of money in exchange for further cuts to pensions and removal of some tax exemptions. So yeah, it is going to happen again. And again. And again. And all to save a few German and French banks, because politicians feared the results of telling them "you wanted to play in the casino and you lost, now the money is gone" after Lehmann.
Or rather it'll happen again and again until the casino is turned into a viable and competitive economy. I wouldn't blame the Germans and French for trying to contain a crisis at its origin..
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#47"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.
It's wasn't exactly "fake data". It's just that Greece decided to use its own custom-made "IFRS" that were conveniently misrepresenting debt (among others) to make "this year look good".
Varoufakis's tactic was "catenaccio" (for the football/soccer aficionados). What Italian football/soccer teams established in the 80s and Barcelona perfected in the 00's, meaning keep the ball, pass it around with no purpose to attack/defend, just delay till kingdom come. Because since we will never "win" (maintain an inefficient and ineffective economy), we will also never "lose" (progress, liberate professions, promote state transformation, reduce of corruption and cronyism).
And this is why Greece is suffering this brain-drain while at the same time the economy is struggling.
Don Quixote was an honorable figure. Varoufakis, Tsipras and the rest of the happy campers in government are just a useless gang feeding of a dying country.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't Greece falsify data for years? That would explain the AAA ratings.
It's wasn't exactly "fake data". It's just that Greece decided to use its own custom-made "IFRS" that were conveniently misrepresenting debt (among others) to make "this year look good". Varoufakis's tactic was "catenaccio" (for the football/soccer aficionados). What Italian football/soccer teams established in the 80s and Barcelona perfected in the 00's, meaning keep the ball, pass it around with no purpose to attac…
Catenaccio is totally different to Barcelona's attacking possession based game also referred to as "tiki-taka" or "total football," popularised by Cruyff. This style is actually the counter to Catenaccio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Cruyff
Greece won the euros in 2004 as heavy underdogs playing heavily defensive, fast counter-attacking, catenaccio style football. It's not fun to watch.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. Default is not a solution to repay a debt. You can choose to default, but you can't expect any credibility later. The message Varoufakis sent to Greeks was: "Let's just say we don't want to pay and everyone will forget about in a couple of years."
Default is a solution if you have a plan to not ever incur sovereign debt. This however is impossible with neoliberal social state governing models.
Re: Review of “Adults in the Room” by Yanis Varoufakis
#50Earlier 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.
Its a fascinating theme I see repeating in political news:
* Jah-Rule on fyre festival: "this is not by fault but I take full responsibility"
* Hillary Clinton on losing election: "this is misogyny and fake news fault but I take full responsibility"
* Heather Bresch on Mylan price gouging: "The real fault is in the supply chain but I take full responsibility"