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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

#41

Post by roel_v »

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…

"True and honest"? Are we reading the same article? He sounds like a bitter extremist who doesn't know how to control himself in order to reach a certain goal, but instead like either a petulant child or an autistic person (depending on the day of the week, it seems) can only repeat 'the Greeks voted for no extra cuts yet stay in the Euro so we should get it' (no shit? and I'd like a pony) and 'my economics paper says xyz, I want you to reply to each point I made'. Uh no buddy, that's not how the world works.

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

#42

Post by junto »

agd wrote: post #33
johnsea wrote: post #24

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…

Unfortunately it is the Eurogroup who are not willing to listen or compromise. The IMF reports (including one leaked today http://news.forexlive.com/!/imf-finally-says-what-they-think... ) shows that Varoufakis was right all along and the debt is unsustainable, yet the Eurogroup does not listen and won't consider debt restructuring but wants to continue with the same failed and discredited policies.

I agree. The Eurogroup's real final target in this whole thing is France. The Germans want France to change their culture (pensions, social system, etc), but France is too big a target to go for straight off the bat.

Varoufakis stated:

  "Based on months of negotiation, my conviction is that 
  the German finance minister wants Greece to be pushed out 
  of the single currency to put the fear of God into the 
  French and have them accept his model of a disciplinarian 
  eurozone."
Therefore they are playing the long game, and for that to work, Greece needs to capitulate and exit the Euro. The Eurogroup has tried to make it impossible for Greece to stay in the Euro, but Greece won't bite.

Once Greece do exit the Euro, the rest of Europe will see the incredible pain that is involved when your national banks have the rugs pulled out from underneath them.

Once France understands that they have to change or end up like Greece, they'll change. They'll have no choice.

It is an economic invasion at state level.

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

#43

Post by lucozade »

chrisbennet wrote: post #25
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?

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.

Of the bailout money, yes. But bear in mind that the bailout money (at least the initial tranche) was to take on debt that had already been spent. It most definitely is not that case that that money was spent on debt re-payments.

It's fair to say that a lot of subsequent additional money was primarily used to cover debt re-payments but that's because the original debt was so large (relative to the Greek economy).

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

#44

Post by lucozade »

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…

With my interested bystander hat on, I agree with you.

As someone who has a family interest in Greece being a pleasant place to live and work, it would have been nice if he had been even a tad effective along with it.

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

#45

Post by bobcostas55 »

pfg wrote: post #9
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?

> Less than 10% of the bailout money was left to be used by the government for reforming its economy and safeguarding weaker members of society. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/where-did-the-g...

That's completely meaningless nonsense, money is fungible.

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

#46

Post by Mikeb85 »

junto wrote: post #42
agd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it is the Eurogroup who are not willing to listen or compromise. The IMF reports (including one leaked today http://news.forexlive.com/!/imf-finally-says-what-they-think... ) shows that Varoufakis was right all along and the debt is unsustainable, yet the Eurogroup does not listen and won't consider debt restructuring but wants to continue with the same failed and discredited policies.

I agree. The Eurogroup's real final target in this whole thing is France. The Germans want France to change their culture (pensions, social system, etc), but France is too big a target to go for straight off the bat. Varoufakis stated: "Based on months of negotiation, my conviction is that the German finance minister wants Greece to be pushed out of the single currency to put the fear of God into the French and have…

> The Germans want France to change their culture (pensions, social system, etc), but France is too big a target to go for straight off the bat.

France will leave the Eurozone before that happens. There's already discontent with the EU and Euro in France, nationalists rising, etc...

And they're a strong enough economy that leaving the Euro wouldn't leave them with worthless francs...

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

#47

Post by jwr »

Reading all these heated discussions on HN, I find them to be extremely polarized ("good Germany/bad Germany") and missing the essential component: Greece is not a country that can sustainably live without working hard. Why do so few people mention that almost 75 percent of Greek pensioners retire before the age of 61?

While I do think debt relief is a necessary tool, I also believe that we should hear much more about what the country will do to improve productivity and work harder.

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

#48

Post by pfg »

johnsea wrote: post #24

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…

When the financial crisis hit, almost every country on this planet increased public spending and introduced stimulus package after stimulus package in order to help the economy back on its feet.

Greece is in a situation where their economy desperately needs any kind of stimulus. Instead, the rest of Europe decides to make an example of them by forcing them to implement austerity measures that target the masses (and not the tax-evading elite) because that is the fastest way to collect more taxes and cut public spending in a short timeframe (VAT increases, pension cuts). This is the total opposite of what Europe was doing when they were hit by the crisis.

Obviously, the European leadership wasn't happy when someone who understood this and was willing to speak up about it came into power in Greece. Luckily, the media was happy as ever to make this a human interest story and focused on Varoufakis' lifestyle instead of actually looking at what they were trying to achieve and how Greece was in an impossible situation. They've been in power for about 6 months now and are somehow responsible for all the tax evasion, public spending mistakes and, really, anything else Greece gets blamed for.

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

#49

Post by sandstrom »

While I agree with some of Varoufakis ideas (e.g. that Greece may be better of leaving the Euro, since internal devaluations are hard), he doesn't portray the other side objectively.

Many of the suggested improvements are objectively sound, e.g. property taxes, tax collection in general, normalized VAT, reducing government corruption and red-tape, removing various monopolies, etc.

Greece is the most corrupt country in the EU[1] and also one of the worst for doing business in general[2]. It also has one of the lowest levels of productivity.

It's been ~5 years since the first bailout, yet Greece haven't made much progress. Many of the suggested improvements require a simple pen stroke by the parliament. No wonder Germans get tired bankrolling all of Greece.

[1] http://www.ekathimerini.com/155963/article/ekathimerini/news...

[2] http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/greece#st...

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

#50

Post by paulojreis »

johnsea wrote: post #24

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…

> Stoneage lefties like to discuss, well, preach, all day long while spending other (EU) citizen's money

What did you find particularly "stoneage" in his ideas?

It's not the first time I notice criticism (a rather empty one) of "left ideas" based on "being old". Isn't it a little non-sensical, to criticize ideas for being old?

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