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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

#71

Post by RobertoG »

mc32 wrote: post #11
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.

That's not what happened.

He had a plan (allegedly it was a Plan B) for the exit of the Euro if Brussels (actually Berlin) continue with the craziness. The Greek primer minister decided not to continue with the plan and he resigned as finance minister.

The primer minister could be accused of cowardice, but we have to understand that Greece was threaded with the shut down of its financial system in what, in the opinion of a lot of people, was an illegal movement by the ECB (1). It was a really difficult decision.

(1) https://diem25.org/thegreekfiles/

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

#72

Post by atmosx »

cinquemb wrote: post #55
elorant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece's problem isn't the debt. It's the competitiveness of the economy, or more precisely the lack of. Even if we had all our debt erased, the way the economy is structured we'd be back in the same place give it a couple of decades, at most. We spend so much money paying pensions that it's a given we'd default one way or the other. Furthermore, you can't just default on the debt just by saying so. There's a naivety…

> Furthermore, you can't just default on the debt just by saying so. There's a naivety among mostly Greeks that just by going back to drachma and defaulting on our debt will magically solve all of our problems. In a country that imports pretty much everything that would be catastrophic. Well thinking from a trader perspective, by defaulting and going back to the drachma (and leaving the EU), Greece would have more fl…

The OPs perspective in the Greek's mainstream media and elite's perspective. You can't even discuss the eventually of switching currency in the TV.

At the same time other countries which are not on the brink of collapse are prepared to face an eventual break up of the Euro (e.g. LePen winning the elections in France) and the only who doesn't have a plan, and God forbid it comes up with one, is Greece...

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

#73

Post by marcosdumay »

ricw wrote: post #46
sgift wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Each round it gets exponentially bigger... There will come a time when postponing it won't work, then what?

By the way, how injecting money in the hands of a chosen handful and taking it from a country to try to pay back can make a viable and competitive economy?

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

#74

Post by RobertoG »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #65
EastLondonCoder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, its also worth noting that the US do have mechanisms in place to transfer funds from surplus areas to deficit areas.

As does the EU.

You are going to need to be more precise there.

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

#75

Post by marcosdumay »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
krona wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

> only sensible thing to do is default The problem here was cashflow; defaulting might save you from more loan payments, although actually doing it is quite painful under international law (see Argentina). But Greece needed to take out further loans in order to meet immediate public funding needs - and defaulting would have prevented that, or made it much more expensive. I've turned this over in my head a number of t…

"The only way out" != "trouble free"

Obviously Greece needs a balanced budget for defaulting. Too bad it seems to be moving the other way.

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

#76

Post by atmosx »

ferongr wrote: post #18
sgift wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

He resigned the night of the referendum, when he understood that the government is going to capitulate. Maybe in some countries that's nothing special - as it should be. When you're not on the same page with what the government does, you retire and let someone else who believes in the solution, implement it and then pay the piper.

In Greece, I know of NO politician in 50 years, who retired promptly when his views and gov's views stopped being aligned.

So regarding Greece, that's a huge deal and gives him alone more credibility that the last 10 Greek governments put together.

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

#77

Post by RobertoG »

atmosx wrote: post #68
mc32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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? That's very poor understanding of what he did. What he said was we won't accept any more loans that we can't pay back and requested a sort of new deal for Greece which of course, included a large debt haircut. He was never pro-Grexit. He was arguing…

"but if you take the time to read/watch his interview his thinking is crystal clear"

And here is, I think, the problem. In general people don't take the time, and that's OK, but then they have not problem in having a strong opinion, that they read in some interested media.

My advice to the people so inclined is: check some of Varoufakis (and others) youtube interviews. Read a little about what is going on.

Check, for instance, how Spain was allowed to spend without consequences above the deficit limits just before the elections.

Check how, in the same way there is a limit to deficits in the treaties, there is a limit in surplus that Germany don't feel it has to respect.

Or just think how it's impossible that everybody is in surplus at the same time.

Or how all integrated monetary areas have deficit and surplus regions and that is OK because they have some way to compensate the unbalances.

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

#78

Post by atmosx »

pif wrote: post #25
shkkmo wrote: post #12

Earlier 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."

> 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."

The solution he proposed to the EU was rejected and the next day was applied by the letter on Ukraine.

Plus being accused of talking macro-economics on a Eurogroup should be like accused of liking basketball at an NBA playoff game. But then again, if the room is full of politician, who don't understand the first thing about economics and just blindly execute, that's what happens.

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

#79

Post by atmosx »

dnautics wrote: post #49
pif wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nope, history says otherwise. As long as the debt stands Greece will not be able to get any financing exactly because it's assured that it will not be repaid.

The only way to get financing is by debt restructuring. It has happened time and again. You'd be amazed how many countries defaulted the last century. I think Germany defaulted twice.

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