Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 163 posts

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#21

Post by kalkin »

fuj wrote: post #12
luch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're implying Greece did take Euro money without any intention to repay other countries. The reality is much more nuanced. Greek did take part of a fund destined to boost their economy, like Western european countries with the US's Marshall Plan. Whether the investments made with this money were profitable or not it's up to debate, but the end game (as for Spain, Portugal and Italy) always were to improve the greek…

What about forging documents to get accepted in the eurozone? Forging documents to get more loans? The rampant corruption on every level of the Greek society? [1] Obviously this is not politically correct, so downvotes are expected. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_G...

Politicians from parties who now get 3-4% of the vote lied years ago (to the Greek public as well as EU bankers), so let's take Greek workers' pensions, crush their unions, slash their social services, and offer no jobs or future to 60% of Greek young people. The bankers may not get their money anyway, since the debt is still increasing, but at least the Greeks* will get what they deserve!

*may not apply to the elites who actually bankrupted the country, who don't rely on government services and can keep their money in Swiss accounts

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#23

Post by crdoconnor »

fuj wrote: post #12
luch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're implying Greece did take Euro money without any intention to repay other countries. The reality is much more nuanced. Greek did take part of a fund destined to boost their economy, like Western european countries with the US's Marshall Plan. Whether the investments made with this money were profitable or not it's up to debate, but the end game (as for Spain, Portugal and Italy) always were to improve the greek…

What about forging documents to get accepted in the eurozone? Forging documents to get more loans? The rampant corruption on every level of the Greek society? [1] Obviously this is not politically correct, so downvotes are expected. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_G...

These things are not solely responsible for the ruinous state of the Greek economy, which can be proven very easily:

Every periphery economy suffered from the same economic malaise caused by a housing boom, a crash, a bailout of their banking sectors and austerity imposed from above (all actions ordered by Brussels).

Yet Greece was the only one that played silly games with Goldman Sachs to get accepted (for which nobody has been punished except the Greek people).

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#24

Post by crdoconnor »

seliopou wrote: post #19
fuj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about forging documents to get accepted in the eurozone? Forging documents to get more loans? The rampant corruption on every level of the Greek society? [1] Obviously this is not politically correct, so downvotes are expected. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_G...

Not to justify the practice, but pretty much every periphery country fudged the numbers in order to be admitted to the Eurozone because none of them had a strong enough economy then to be let in. One did it, then the next looked at the last one and said "If them, why not us?" Greece is pretty corrupt though.

>Not to justify the practice, but pretty much every periphery country fudged the numbers in order to be admitted to the Eurozone because none of them had a strong enough economy then to be let in. One did it, then the next looked at the last one and said "If them, why not us?"

The real fun starts when Greece defaults and Italy/France/Spain/Ireland/etc. go...

If them, why not us?

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#25

Post by seliopou »

luch wrote: post #9
gadders wrote: post #6

Smart. Does this mean I can have a vote and decide to not pay for any games from Steam now?

You're implying Greece did take Euro money without any intention to repay other countries. The reality is much more nuanced. Greek did take part of a fund destined to boost their economy, like Western european countries with the US's Marshall Plan. Whether the investments made with this money were profitable or not it's up to debate, but the end game (as for Spain, Portugal and Italy) always were to improve the greek…

Depending on which funds you are referring to, this may or may not be accurate. If you're talking about investment from the European Investment Bank (EIB), then yes, those funds were meant to bolster the economies of all European countries. However, in order to receive funds for a project, the country sponsoring the project has to put up some percentage of the budget. Last I heard it was 50%. That's not really feasible for insolvent countries to do.

If you're talking about the bailout, then no, it was never meant to be a Marshall Plan sort of deal. More or less, it was meant to give money to an insolvent country so it could save its insolvent banks and pay off their creditors. The vast majority of the bailout money did not stay in the country and put to productive use, but instead left the country to pay off its debt.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#26

Post by digi_owl »

davidgerard wrote: post #14
seliopou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good video, but quite long. If anybody wants a more compressed summary of the policy points, check this one out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytXgMnm9tHs Note that he is a mathematical economist with a PhD (focusing on game theory), and also a self-proclaimed Marxist. So his ideas and perspectives are very interesting, to say the least, and at times very unique.

A Marxist who's into Hayek? Now that's interesting. Where did you find the Marxism? It's not in his Wikipedia article (which really needs updating).

I don't think he can be nailed down to Marxism or any other -ism. He seems to be part of a eclectic gang of economists that find insight and inspiration everywhere, by simply putting reality ahead of thought models.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#28

Post by davidgerard »

digi_owl wrote: post #26
davidgerard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Marxist who's into Hayek? Now that's interesting. Where did you find the Marxism? It's not in his Wikipedia article (which really needs updating).

I don't think he can be nailed down to Marxism or any other -ism. He seems to be part of a eclectic gang of economists that find insight and inspiration everywhere, by simply putting reality ahead of thought models.

I figured that from Marx plus Hayek :-)

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#29

Post by harywilke »

arethuza wrote: post #15
fuj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about forging documents to get accepted in the eurozone? Forging documents to get more loans? The rampant corruption on every level of the Greek society? [1] Obviously this is not politically correct, so downvotes are expected. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_G...

What about working with Goldman Sachs to hide the true level of debt that Greece had from Eurostat? http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis...

Legal at the time. Same thing the Italians did.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#30

Post by xkarga00 »

Varoufakis is a great economist and his placement as the Finance Minister is a smart move from the new government. At this point I would like to suggest reading To Future And Back by I. Pitsouli[1]. Somewhere in it, there is suggested (or prophecized if you wish) that in years to come scientists will replace politicians in governments. Well, that has already started happening and is right IMO because science is closely related to philoshopy which in turn by definition deals with problems related to reality, existence, values, etc. ie. the everyday problems most politicians seem to ignore nowadays.

ps. Varoufakis definitely needs to revisit Bitcoin though[2]

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Future-Back--More-than-Prophecies-eboo...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7841186

Post reply on HN