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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

#151

Post by cuillevel3 »

tomp wrote: post #87
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.

Germany is a nation that has benefited enormously from a single currency (according to my understanding). A large source of currency fluctuations are trade imbalances. If a country exports more than it imports, its currency appreciates. If it imports more than it exports, it depreciates. For example, if USA imports from the UK are bigger than it's exports to the UK, then USA will be buying GBP with USD (on average),…

Germans economic power has been enormous before the introduction of the euro, while countries like Greek had been struggling for a long while. Germany not paying reparations to Greece for WW2 might have played a role there.

But why enter in a trade union in the first place? Right, the oligarchs made Greece do it. However borrowing from the Deutsche Bank and expecting them to be nice and fair about it sounds naive to me.

Many people don't get it, but the EU is mainly about trade. Not so much about democracy or social equality. That being said, there is some redistribution of wealth between countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#Ne...

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#152

Post by cuillevel3 »

atmosx wrote: post #91
gadders wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, much like Germany after 2 WW ... They did a damage that they couldn't repay. Then Marshall came but they didn't learn much, did they?

Oh, Germany learned a lot and the Marshall plan succeeded in saving Europe. Germany is now surrounded by friendly nations and no longer a military threat.

I think Marcus Brigstocke says it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsaKgz1v-f8

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#153

Post by pm90 »

oldmanjay wrote: post #110
pm90 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes yes the Government was corrupt. What the parent is saying is: the lender should have checked to make sure that the debtor (Greek Govt.) was actually capable of paying back what it borrowed. But the lenders didn't, because Governments are excellent debtors: they represent the nation! Governments are excellent credit risks: because they will most likely want access to more capital in the future, they cannot tarnish…

I have to admit to a certain confusion about your point. I guess what you're saying is that anyone who thought to help Greece should have expected to be jerked around and told to pound sand? I feel like this is some form of victim blaming.

Yes, they should have known exactly what they were getting into. You automatically assume a certain kind of risk when you lend to sovereign nations, which by definition, are not compelled to return your money (although they often are, due to many factors).

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#154

Post by fennecfoxen »

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…

"Resources"? At the end of the day, a soldier needs you to put food in him -- just like anyone else. That food comes from somewhere. It is scarce. It is not free. This is aside from all the things he'll expect to be able to buy with his pay that use resources, or the uniform / weapons / boats / fuel / et cetera.

While an army is a useful insurance policy in a variety of situations, the best case scenario is really that these people do nothing. Believe it or not, it does not make the Greek people any more prosperous to have many people standing around doing nothing, unless the money you pay them to do it comes from somewhere other than Greece and isn't ever going to be paid back.

-- which, to be fair, is a tactic that works once every few generations! One could make a case that it is a simplified version the story of Greece the past decade. You see these debt renegotiation promises in the news now.

More broadly, though, the economy is about producing valuable things (or services), not about money. It is trivially obvious that an idle soldier is not producing much of value at his post and cannot assist the economy in any way. Even middle-management at IBM at least pretends that they're helping accomplish something worth money to someone.

And nowhere in the history of the world has ever been able to fix economic stagnation or crisis by spending more money on the military, though it has run great empires into the ground.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#155

Post by coldtea »

Pinatubo wrote: post #146
coldtea wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying lip service to something is not the same as applied economics.

Are you talking about economists or corporations? They aren't the same thing.

Not that different in interests either. Economists are mostly serving a role as policy influencer in favor or either states or corporations or both.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#156

Post by crdoconnor »

sebkomianos wrote: post #114
crdoconnor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume so. This type of thing: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/greece-spends-bailout-cash-eur... ...is against everything Syriza stands for.

It's highly unlikely: The government is a coalition of SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, a quite right-winged party whose president was given the Ministry of Defense and first words were "I want to apologise to the people of our armed forces for the financial injustice they were done to by the previous government".

Which probably means that wages/benefits will be raised even as expenditures on foreign military hardware are cut. They can still easily do that and cut armed forces expenditures.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#157

Post by sebkomianos »

crdoconnor wrote: post #156
sebkomianos wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's highly unlikely: The government is a coalition of SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, a quite right-winged party whose president was given the Ministry of Defense and first words were "I want to apologise to the people of our armed forces for the financial injustice they were done to by the previous government".

Which probably means that wages/benefits will be raised even as expenditures on foreign military hardware are cut. They can still easily do that and cut armed forces expenditures.

"Easily" is a jump, I am not sure the right wing of this coalition will be happy to discuss any military spending. By the way, for what it's worth, "foreign military hardware" has been a very well-known ground for greek officials to receive bribes.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#158

Post by atmosx »

xkarga00 wrote: post #137
atmosx wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay than this is a misunderstanding. I am sure Varoufakis was talking about the currency. There is no doubt whatsoever that the protocol is one of the most important technological advancements of the past decade, maybe of the 21st century.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#159

Post by atmosx »

shazow wrote: post #121
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people understood this. Germany has benefited enormously because of the euro, and yet you see a lot of belly aching about the southern European countries. Countries really only have two valves to throttle their economies. Interest rates (which Greece now has the highest in the European Union), and printing more money. Right now because the Greek economy is in a log jam, they're suffering from deflation an…

> It would also mean the flow of trade from Germany to Greece would probably balance out more because the domestic economy in Greece would be cheaper than importing German goods. I read this a lot but I don't quite understand why--How does a unified currency prevent the domestic economy in Greece from being cheaper than importing German goods? Why can't the local Greece industry lower prices (as it would effectively…

Because of technology. Fishing in Ithaca costs more than importing fish. The sea in the island is amazing, full of fresh fish. Yet nobody eats fresh fish in restaurants because there are no fishermen left! Same goes for most of other products, in conditions parity there is no way for a Greek corp to fight on price domain a big German corp.

Re: Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Finance Minister of Greece

#160

Post by atmosx »

fromtheoutside wrote: post #36
kalkin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would be better to take this money from the Greek oligarchs and keep some level of social safety net. But isn't it up to the Greeks to make that happen?

Oh well, we did on Jan 25 ;)
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