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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

#111

Post by breakyerself »

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…

They shouldn't and that's exactly why states are allowed to declare bankruptcy and why Puerto Rico should be allowed to declare bankruptcy. States in the EU probably should be able to also.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#112

Post by occamrazor »

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…

US states are forbidden (with some exceptions and loopholes) from issuing debt. I would guess that one of the main reasons why this limitation has never been lifted is exactly to avoid a situation like the one you describe. The Puerto Rico debt crisis has shown that this is not a purely theoretical concern.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#113

Post by xkemp »

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.

It would have been impossible for Greece's GDP to drop by that amount (in absolute terms) before it joined the EU. Because it quadrupled after joining.

Here, check out this graph, which rather obviously shows the benefit of joining the EU in 1981: https://www.google.com/search?q=greece+gdp&oq=greece+gdp&aqs...

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#114

Post by xfs »

mrtksn wrote: post #106
xfs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm not talking about the meetings either.

The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy."

The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#115

Post by champagneben »

leto_ii wrote: post #107

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 pl…

That list speaks nothing of industriousness. It's about how many hours are spent at work. Most people who have experienced working in different cultures could tell you that that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how productive people are at work or how much actually gets done.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#116

Post by occamrazor »

breakyerself wrote: post #111
fifnir wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They shouldn't and that's exactly why states are allowed to declare bankruptcy and why Puerto Rico should be allowed to declare bankruptcy. States in the EU probably should be able to also.

Greece could default, but it was not clear what would have happened to their central bank, and if a default would have pushed Greece out of the Eurozone.

Due to these uncertainties, and undoubtedly also to pressure from the rest of the EU, Greece decided instead to renegotiate their debt with the Trojka.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#117

Post by leto_ii »

champagneben wrote: post #115
leto_ii wrote: post #107

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 pl…

That list speaks nothing of industriousness. It's about how many hours are spent at work. Most people who have experienced working in different cultures could tell you that that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how productive people are at work or how much actually gets done.

Productivity is not the same as hard work.

A guy with a pickax can work very hard and still be a lot less productive than a guy with an excavator.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#118

Post by dependenttypes »

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…

Why is it a shitty move exactly? Transparency is a good thing.

Re: Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings

#120

Post by mrtksn »

xfs wrote: post #114
mrtksn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not talking about the meetings either. The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy." The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.

Okay, he could have not capitulated and let the electorate face the music of their decision.

It was a referendum among the Greek people about what their government should do.

You can't hold a referendum about what other people should give them.

The UK got a Brexit referendum and they got out. Nobody would have cared if they held "EU gives as market access but we do not allow Europeans coming over and work referendum" which is what the UK essentially wants.

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