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Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

greece.greekreporter.com

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Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#101

Post by claudiawerner »

tasubotadas wrote: post #52
lucianoq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement age in Greece is today and was in 2011 higher than in Germany. Using some anecdotes and guess for aggregate data is bad induction. "privatize" means that today all the Greek airports are owned by German companies. Is it legit to suppose there was a slight conflict of interest between the "doctor" and the "patient"? I mean, would you trust your doctor if he gains on your death?

Really? "Like many EU countries, the general retirement age in Greece is 65, although the actual average is about 61. However, the deeply fragmented system also provides for early retirement – as early as 55 for men and 50 for women – in many professions classified as unhealthy." 55 and 50! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-to-ca...

A low retirement age is a good thing; it is a symbol that society does not prize labour just as much as it appears to. It is an affirmation that we work to live, not live to work.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#102

Post by anovikov »

fifnir wrote: post #96
pavlov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece voluntarily joined a larger currency zone and reaped the benefits for a decade. Should state elections in Mississippi drive US Fed policy?

NY private banks lend money to Mississippi banks. At some later point, the global market crashes and NY ""suddenly discovers"" that Mississippi officials lied about the state's finances. NY now wants their money back in the middle of a world-wide crisis. Mississippi banks can't pay. Should we force the (next generation of) citizens of Mississippi (who didn't personally lie about anything) to pay all this debt for the…

Well, to me the answer is "yes of course" at least as long as these Mississippi officials were elected on a state level, or appointed by those elected on state level - not by Washington.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#103

Post by xkemp »

petermcneeley wrote: post #76

This is about "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy" It reflects the anti democratic perspective of the Eurogroup and is one of the most fundamental political issues of our times. https://www.google.com/amp/s/markcarrigan.net/2017/05/08/ele...

Oh, that old chestnut. The believe that other countries are bound by what you promised local voters.

I'd quip that politicians making that argument could just as well legislate for good weather. But considering Greece, I'm now wondering if they may have already done that. In which case I owe them an apology.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#104

Post by xfs »

alexge233 wrote: post #95

Varoufakis only cares about himself, always promoting himself and is just seeking attention. What a joke of a person! He wanted to replace Euros with a crypto-currency as IoU at some point rather than going back to Drachma. The man is an academic, not a very good at that either and a clown of a Politician. His "negotiations" cost the Greek tax payer about 100Bn Euros, and enabled DB to shift their debt to the German…

> He wanted to replace Euros with a crypto-currency as IoU

I don't know where you get this piece of information, but in all his books he argues against Bitcoin and crypto-currency as a reserve currency, making a point of the impossibility of apolitical money.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#105

Post by anovikov »

xfs wrote: post #92
pavlov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece voluntarily joined a larger currency zone and reaped the benefits for a decade. Should state elections in Mississippi drive US Fed policy?

Reaped the benefits? Greece's GDP dropped 30% since 2008 it and was forced into austerity by the Troika to move debts from the left pockets of Deutsche Bank to the right pockets, with the interests paid for by Greek tax payers.

Thing is, it's GDP exploded for now underlying economic reasons in the previous decade... and they all consumed the absolutely unearned wealth produced by nothing but cooking the books.

The real "fair" solution would be: to auction off their sovereign territory to the highest bidder, and paying off debt with that cash. If they try to object, confiscate their merchant fleet and block ports with aerial minelaying.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#106

Post by mrtksn »

xfs wrote: post #99
mrtksn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember, Varoufakis was personally offended that the eurocrats did not take him seriously and did not engage in a discussion of his ideas. He wrote about it several times, he sounded extremely disappointed that you can't have an academic discussion on that table. I had a really hard time to sympathise with him as I got the impression that he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation and kept c…

> he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. According to him, as a professional economist, the Euro is structurally unsustainable and is going to implode in the next 2008 because of the way the EU is set up politically creating a situation of a central bank without a country and countries without central banks. What angered him is the way Eu…

See, here is the problem: This was not the topic of the meetings.

They did not convene there to fix the grand issue that was well known since the inception of the Euro. Not really a scientific discovery he made, a hot topic since ever.

Some professional economists argue that the current capitalist economy is not sustainable, how well do you think it will go if an economist brings this up in his meeting with his bank about the restructuring of his debt he/she racked up?

It's simply ridiculous. It's like those tech people over-obsessed with the technical aspect of an issue who get a managerial job and screwing up royally, get fired and keep bugging people about how company X is doomed because they did not implement his tech idea.

He simply did not understand what job he got and where he is. He thought that he had all the answers for all the problems of the world and he can fix them in those meetings with the eurocrats but they did not listen to him.

It's cringie.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#107

Post by leto_ii »

Not directly related to the article, but here's a bit of context regarding the industriousness of different populations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_annual_labor_h...

As can be seen, Greece is towards the top and Germany close to the bottom of the ranking.

This should not be taken as saying that the Greeks are better than the Germans. It's just that individuals in Greece, like those in many other places, spend their lives working hard and they don't deserve to suffer for the corrupt dealings, incompetence and prejudice of their or other countries ruling elite.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#108

Post by lucianoq »

pavlov wrote: post #86
petermcneeley wrote: post #76

This is about "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy" It reflects the anti democratic perspective of the Eurogroup and is one of the most fundamental political issues of our times. https://www.google.com/amp/s/markcarrigan.net/2017/05/08/ele...

Greece voluntarily joined a larger currency zone and reaped the benefits for a decade. Should state elections in Mississippi drive US Fed policy?

Benefits? Which benefits? Eurozone is the lowest-growing area of the world. It destroyed more GDP than the II World War comparing with trends before Euro and with other countries at the same time.

> Should state elections in Mississippi drive US Fed policy?

EU is not a Federal Country, not a State and most of all not a Nation. It's just a common table where each country fights for their interests and the biggest state try to eat all the others not caring about its level of export.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#109

Post by xkemp »

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #6
tasubotadas wrote: post #4

That's a really shitty move. >a USB of the conversations he had secretly recorded while attending a Eurogroup discussion in Brussels People in private converse completely differently (more freely) than in public. Judging people on what they said there by a public standard (it's impossible that this will not happen) is extremely unfair. Especially since Varoufakis knew that he will be recorded, he has probably chosen…

While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. A lot of citizens of a few countries had their lives almost destroyed by the decisions of these politicians, so is only fair they know what was discussed, who defended them, etc. Let us not forget the pressure the ECB (and other european institutions) put on some countries that have come to light after the fact. (Like only allowing…

People in this thread seem to mostly not even consider the value that the ability to (sometimes) speak privately has.

As an analogy: would you want your spouse (and vice versa) to hear recording of every conversation you have, including those with close friends/therapists/rabbis etc?

It's not completely absurd to say yes to that question. But it's notable that such a relationship would be a departure from established norms, and that most people feel even healthy and strong relationships profit from the ability to occasionally seek advice or blow of steam in confidentiality.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#110

Post by drewbug »

Middleclass wrote: post #70
CarelessExpert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While what you say is true, the contents of these meetings should be public knowledge. I honestly don't think it's that simple. While decisions should always be public, in order to come to reasonable compromises on issues, it can be valuable for leaders to be able to have closed-door conversations outside of the spotlight, where they don't have to engage in political grandstanding; after all, it's that kind of comp…

Is there any difference between "secret compromises" and corruption if the compromises are against citizens' interests and will? A black box might work IF it can be ensured that all data considered will be bundled with the decision. But how can such a thing ever be ensured? We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs. It seem…

> We'll soon have source-included but secret-compiler software as a technical possibility, by means of zero-knowledge computational proofs.

could you elaborate on this?

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