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Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

newstatesman.com

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Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#21

Post by danieltillett »

venomsnake wrote: post #17
vixen99 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just wondering what the heck Greece has done with the some half trillion Euros it's sucked in over the years and which hard-pressed taxpayers across Europe, many with standards of living below that of the average Greek, will now be helping to offset?

Well the ECB could just print couple of trillion euro and hang them out divided to each country. We will have a little inflation and that's it. Greece will be debt free and there will be no burdens on the taxpayers.

Actually Greece has a printing press for Euros (apparently you can tell which euro notes are printed in Greece by the serial number). I have been half expecting Greece to solve all its problems by just printing.

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#22

Post by stewbrew »

theseatoms wrote: post #19

For those who are just catching up, I found the following article enlightening on the Greece situation: http://www.pragcap.com/greece ..especially the following line: - The EMU is a single currency system just like the USA is. The reason the USA works and the EMU doesn’t is because the USA has a system of rebalancing whereby poor states get more federal funding than wealthy states.

In the EU poorer states get more funding too. One line explanations for a fictive problem are most likely wrong.

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#24

Post by johnsea »

Egoistical showman. Not able to listen. Not able to compromise. Using inapropriate language (waterboarding, terrorist - insulting people who endure real waterboarding and/or are hurt by terrorist). Doesn't stop shooting at Schäuble (Germany), but in truth he was opposed by 19 European countries. External pressure is needed.

Stoneage lefties like to discuss, well, preach, all day long while spending other (EU) citizen's money. Greece will be saved when he and the anarcho-communist-syndicalist grufties start to modernize greece, e.g. do something again the blatant corruption, burocratie and tax evasion instead of hindering startups, business and innovative people. Imho.

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#25

Post by chrisbennet »

vixen99 wrote: post #7
showkhill wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear, hear. While Greece have lost this battle, he has shone a light into the murky workings of European politics that I believe will be invaluable and inspiring to future reformers, not to mention the citizens of the EU member states.

I'm just wondering what the heck Greece has done with the some half trillion Euros it's sucked in over the years and which hard-pressed taxpayers across Europe, many with standards of living below that of the average Greek, will now be helping to offset?

Almost all of it was used for dept payments I believe.

Alas, this sort of thing (protect the interests of capital) is pretty normal. In the US, bankers got a bailout and homeowners lost their homes for example.

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#26

Post by johnsea »

showkhill wrote: post #3
xae wrote: post #2

Difficult not to love how he discusses everything with a very different language from traditional politans (or I would say, professional polititians). He sounds true and honest, and by no means a radical inciendary that wants to destroy the EU and the Euro. His political career has been cut short by massive pressure from all sides but he has gained sympathy for Syriza's cause worldwide in a very short time and noneth…

Hear, hear. While Greece have lost this battle, he has shone a light into the murky workings of European politics that I believe will be invaluable and inspiring to future reformers, not to mention the citizens of the EU member states.

Greece has lost the war. Fortunately the resistance was strong enough against his completely exagerated expectations. Such parties are not normally at the helm neither in US nor Europe. Care to elaborate murky workings?

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#27

Post by vamur »

danieltillett wrote: post #21
venomsnake wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the ECB could just print couple of trillion euro and hang them out divided to each country. We will have a little inflation and that's it. Greece will be debt free and there will be no burdens on the taxpayers.

Actually Greece has a printing press for Euros (apparently you can tell which euro notes are printed in Greece by the serial number). I have been half expecting Greece to solve all its problems by just printing.

They need authorization from ECB and the printer prints only 10 euros.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/return-drachma...

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#29

Post by biehl »

_ph_ wrote: post #10

While I am not a big fan of austerity, one can ultimately only spend what you got. There were several months in which the Greece government had broken with the austerity agreements but in exchange did not manage to achieve anything which could be called an improvement of the country income situation. As a consequence the gap between income and spending even widened without giving positive impulses to the Greek econom…

I am not sure what "country income situation" you are talking about.

"The Greek budget showed a primary surplus of 1.506 billion euros in the January-May period this year"

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/06/25/greek-budget-prim...

Re: Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

#30

Post by jpfr »

venomsnake wrote: post #18
_ph_ wrote: post #10

While I am not a big fan of austerity, one can ultimately only spend what you got. There were several months in which the Greece government had broken with the austerity agreements but in exchange did not manage to achieve anything which could be called an improvement of the country income situation. As a consequence the gap between income and spending even widened without giving positive impulses to the Greek econom…

> While I am not a big fan of austerity, one can ultimately only spend what you got. Wrong. You can always print money if you are the sovereign.

Printing money is like robbing those who still have cash as the currency is devalued. And it doesn't change a thing if you owe money in foreign currencies.

Otherwise, Japan et al. would have long ramped up the printing presses.

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