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Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
51–60 of 163 posts
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#52Earlier 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...
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 elite…
This is vastly mentality problem and consequences that comes with it. Simple fact is, southern european countries have laid back attitude which is nice to enjoy and so on, but doesn't perform well and has more drawbacks in long term, as we can see. The st had to hit the fan hard, and it did for people to wake up.
What do you expect - full pardon on all mistakes? It won't happen next time, we promise? You know, one of life's lessons is - you pay for all your mistakes, and youth is no excuse for them. Sometimes, in a very hard way.
We all have crappy politicians in one or other way, but guess what - unless vote was rigged, they were elected by majority. I do agree with notion that in democracy nation has leaders that it deserves, exceptions will even out in broader average (either location or time based).
One generic example - when there was massive tax evasion, people should have outsted it's government for closing an eye on it. They didn't. Now they face consequences for what every sane moral person must have felt is wrong.
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 :-)
Correct me when I'm wrong, but are those two not economists who gave a flying fuck about empiricism?
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 :-)
Correct me when I'm wrong, but are those two not economists who gave a flying fuck about empiricism?
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valve has hierarchy. A good example is when the AR group was fired. The decision certainly came from someone, since the fired group wasn't notified, they were fired on the spot without prior notification. Therefore the decision was not democratic or made by everyone, but was instead secret and made by some small group or individual.
^^^ much of the above is not true
^^^ much of the above is not true
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#56Varoufakis wrote a blog post two years ago on the history of political economic thought on the firm. It also delves into Valve's unique management culture [1]. "There is one last bastion of economic activity that proved remarkably resistant to the triumph of the market: firms, companies and, later, corporations. Think about it: market-societies, or capitalism, are synonymous with firms, companies, corporations. And y…
Valve has hierarchy. A good example is when the AR group was fired. The decision certainly came from someone, since the fired group wasn't notified, they were fired on the spot without prior notification. Therefore the decision was not democratic or made by everyone, but was instead secret and made by some small group or individual.
A source would be nice: http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hi...
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured that from Marx plus Hayek :-)
Correct me when I'm wrong, but are those two not economists who gave a flying fuck about empiricism?
Marx was writing when it wasn't even called economics. Hayek was fine with empiricism, you may be thinking of his later followers Rothbard and von Mises.
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#58It will be interesting to see if they can pare down some of Greece's military expenditures, they have over a hundred thousand in their military, nearly ninety thousand soldiers. Granted the politicians can always point to Turkey as a threat but I would be very curious how the new administration handles this. Side effects of closing some of the nearly 500 military and releasing troops is not having jobs for them.
That may be the very least likely thing that could happen, given the historical example of the Weimar republic about a century ago. I'm not implying thats likely or good, but asking politicians to voluntarily give up possibly their only lever is rather optimistic.
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#59Tangentially, what is the main reason for all the protest against the EU? I understand that people in Greece are suffering and that's a terrible thing. However from a lay perspective it seems Germany et al are just trying to help.
Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece
#60Smart. 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…
I don't confuse Greeks with their representatives.
However, and leaving out the current bailout, the reason for Greece to be in the situation it is is because successive governments have provided lavish benefits that they couldn't pay for.