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Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

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Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#131

Post by ConfuciusSay »

Pinatubo wrote: post #112
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by 'efficient' you mean 'most consistently profitable', then no, neither markets nor a 'flexible corporate environment' promote actual efficiency. In that kind of environment - which is not too dissimilar to the one we're in - corporations simply hoard money to no great end, and markets crash unless they're propped up by public subsidies and hand-outs. This distorts the wider economy and makes real efficiency less…

On the contrary, 'providing the greatest possible benefit to the greatest number of people' is a central focus in economics. Start with Pareto efficiency and go from there if you want to see various ways in which economists actually define and study efficiency.

Economists might focus on that, but the point is that in actuality companies do not focus on 'providing the greatest possible benefit to the greatest number of people'.

Partially it's because that goal is far more difficult and complex than the simple aspirations of Greater Taylorism: to increase shareholder value. It's much easier to increase a stock price than it is to actually provide value for a large number of people, which leads to cases like IBM who spends billions buying back their stock while the actual value of their products declines to near zero.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#132

Post by grengineer »

Shivetya wrote: post #35

It 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.

Most soldiers are conscripts. My monthly salary as a conscripted soldier was 8.92 euro and when I became sergeant I got 11.15 euro per month.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#133

Post by [deleted] »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #102
mdemare wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that soldiers and sailors are not particularly productive in a country that's been at peace for quite some time. Nevertheless, if you've got potential candidates who make stuff that the rest of the world is willing to pay for, maybe you should hire them either way. They'll pay for themselves after all. And if you're going to hire them either way, why fire the sailor? (Unless of course it's the sailor you want…

It's not that soldiers and sailors are "not particularly productive", in peace or war. Its that they are what in economics is called a "deadweight loss". They contribute nothing to the productive economy of Greece and the money that pays them could be spent in many more productive ways.

[deleted]

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#134

Post by fauigerzigerk »

mdemare wrote: post #93
fennecfoxen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you don't have to pay a soldier's salary, then you can pay the salary of someone who makes stuff, or does stuff, or supports people who do stuff -- stuff that the rest of the world economy is willing to pay money for. The whole problem is that Greece doesn't have money to do both, and hiring people to mess around with boats doesn't actually contribute to economic growth and prosperity...

I agree that soldiers and sailors are not particularly productive in a country that's been at peace for quite some time. Nevertheless, if you've got potential candidates who make stuff that the rest of the world is willing to pay for, maybe you should hire them either way. They'll pay for themselves after all. And if you're going to hire them either way, why fire the sailor? (Unless of course it's the sailor you want…

Because you need money to fund the activities of those who can make stuff that the world wants. Only later will their work pay for itself and maybe for other things as well, like letting guys in uniforms play useless war games with Turkey.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#135

Post by atmosx »

xkarga00 wrote: post #128
atmosx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he didn't read closely enough his thoughts. Actually, Varoufakis from his twitter account said that since there is this post around[1] by our beloved Berlinese internet-economist TechieChan he didn't had to analyze BTC any further. A couple of points he made are: * He believes that the BTC market can be manipulated by big players easily. * Having a central bank regulating your economy is a good thing, because y…

Maybe reading his post twice wasn't enough. Or maybe it's just that Bitcoin is not just "money" but the whole underlying technology ie. the blockchain is about to introduce huge changes into things we have been used to do in a certain way.

The post was about Bitcoin (the currency) not bitcoin (the protocol). You read it twice and didn't get that part? :-P

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#136

Post by fauigerzigerk »

lmm wrote: post #120
tjradcliffe wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that soldiers and sailors are "not particularly productive", in peace or war. Its that they are what in economics is called a "deadweight loss". They contribute nothing to the productive economy of Greece and the money that pays them could be spent in many more productive ways.

Where's the loss? Soldiers and sailors are notorious for spending their money as soon as they get it, so that money goes right back into circulation. They could be wasting the labour of those able bodies, but at 25% unemployment, any company that needs labour can get it cheap. If the greeks were putting scarce resources into the military, e.g. using metal that could build productive machines to build useless ships an…

I am in favor of an unconditional basic income for all as well. But I wouldn't buy the recipients expensive equipment and teach them how to kill people. That seems expensive and potentially harmful.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#137

Post by xkarga00 »

atmosx wrote: post #135
xkarga00 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe reading his post twice wasn't enough. Or maybe it's just that Bitcoin is not just "money" but the whole underlying technology ie. the blockchain is about to introduce huge changes into things we have been used to do in a certain way.

The post was about Bitcoin (the currency) not bitcoin (the protocol). You read it twice and didn't get that part? :-P

Well, that's exactly why Varoufakis has to revisit Bitcoin. Because the protocol's pros outweight by far the currency's cons.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#138

Post by NotableAlamode »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #59

Tangentially, 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.

You are right, Germany has already flooded billions to Greece. But they didn't use it to make themselves competitive. Instead the retired early.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#139

Post by mafribe »

antientropic wrote: post #95
WhitneyLand wrote: post #59

Tangentially, 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.

Paul Krugman helpfully explains the situation here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/paul-krugman-endin... In short, the EU and the IMF demanded savage spending cuts from the Greek government. Turns out that cutting in a depressed economy makes the depression worse (despite the wildly optimistic predictions by EU officials, who decided to ignore textbook economics). As a result, Greece now has enormous unemp…

Somebody should ask Paul Krugman the following question: why not ask the US government (or indeed any other) to lend Greece lot's of money. He only ever seems to ask Germany to do so, despite Germany having already lost billions and billions on Greece.

One can ask Yanis Varoufakis the same question.

The reason why they don't is quite easy and also very unpleasant for them.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#140

Post by mafribe »

atmosx wrote: post #83
WhitneyLand wrote: post #59

Tangentially, 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.

Ahm, no. That's absolutely not true. As a prominent example of German Help, here is the history of the Siemens scandal[1][3]. Also, German's choice for PM when Papandreou quit, was Loukas Papademos. It's the guy who in 2001 acted as a bridge between Goldman Sachs and Greece to false statistics and allow Greece into the EUR. Isn't a kind of strange choice? There are many more situations (military equipment, MAN, etc.)…

You conventiently forget to point out clearly that the Troika and Germany have give Greece extremely large amount of money for free. The bailouts for (mainly French) banks was free money for Greece. What the new governent is trying to do is get more of that free money.
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