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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

#111

Post by toomuchtodo »

jpfr wrote: post #30
venomsnake wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As long as quality of life remains the same or improves, the value of a currency is meaningless (ie Japan).

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

#112

Post by MagnumOpus »

parasubvert wrote: post #86
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every borrower of money has to come to terms with the lender, or there will be no money.

Never had this been true in history. Bankruptcy and debt forgiveness have happened regularly through history. And if those don't happen, usually revolution or war is a consequence.

It is true, though. Bankruptcy (or its polite cousin "debt forgiveness") happens when the money tap gets turned off.

If you want the tap to keep running, you have to be able to compromise with the guys at the source and at least pretend to care about repaying it.

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

#113

Post by RobertoG »

Tomte wrote: post #103
RobertoG wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandparent is basically right. The Euro is flawed by design. Flow capitals works against the Euroarea. For instance: The interest rate convenient for Germany is not the interest rate convenient for Spain. What do you think are the rates chosen by the Central European Bank? (clue: the ECB is in Frankfurt) This shouldn't be more problem that the Fed rate affecting New York and Florida for instance, but there is no…

(clue: the ECB is in Frankfurt) Sure, physical location is paramount... Let's count the members of the main decision-making group of the ECB, the Governing Council. Two Germans. Twenty-three non-Germans.

Sure, physical location in Germany is just by chance..

"Let's count the members of the main decision-making group of the ECB, the Governing Council. Two Germans. Twenty-three non-Germans."

No, let's count hard data better.

Here, from a nobel prize: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/one-size-fits-on...

And here (a little dense maybe): "Overall, the concern that the ECB rate aligns more with the Taylor recommended rates of the core countries than with the peripheral countries appears to be supported by the data[..]" http://econ.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Srivangipuram.p...

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

#114

Post by patrickaljord »

junto wrote: post #72
sandstrom wrote: post #49

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 i…

To be fair, the vast majority of the bailouts have gone to paying back debts. Those debts were held with corporate German and foreign banks. And here is the kicker; Those debts are now held by the ECB, which, is not supposed to be a lender of last resort, but now has become one by default. The corporate banks are now safe and have extricated themselves from the risky position they found themselves in 5 years ago. The…

> Hi there France btw. You still like you early retirement, large civil service employment, string unions and social state? Well, you're number one on their hit list.

Hi there, I'm from France and I would love to see all of the above gone. Any idea when this will happen?

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

#115

Post by jazzyk »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #110
jazzyk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece functioned OK before the euro. They devalued the drachma every now and then to keep themselves competitive. While never the model of operational efficiency, they chugged along before they were saddled with debt in the mid 2000s - debt spent mostly on buying military equipment and other unnecessary stuff FROM GERMANY and other EU countries with Greek decision-makers decisions being "incentivized" to do so. Ordi…

Greece functioned "OK" if a low standard of living, rampant inflation and pervasive lack of access to credit for businesses or individuals is "OK". Of course is better than blowing up a giant credit bubble and then popping it when it goes wrong, but it's not very nice. > debt spent mostly on buying military equipment and other unnecessary stuff FROM GERMANY I hope you realise how ludicrous this sounds. Granting them…

>Greece functioned "OK" if a low standard of living, rampant inflation and pervasive lack of access to credit for businesses or individuals is "OK".

They still have all of these things. Plus 25% unemployment (50% for young people), and debt equal to 180% GDP (soon to be 200%).

It takes two to tango. I was not trying to grant them victim status, I was just pointing out that German (and other EU businesses/banks) are not exactly blameless (ever heard of predatory lending?)

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

#117

Post by dang »

roel_v wrote: post #41
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 say…

Please don't use inflammatory sarcasm when commenting on HN, especially when the topic is inflammatory to begin with.

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

#118

Post by groks »

jwr wrote: post #47

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 abou…

> Why do so few people mention that almost 75 percent of Greek pensioners retire before the age of 61?

According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement

    | Age             | 55-59 | 60-64 | 65-69 | 70+ |
    |-----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----|
    | Germans working |   61% |   23% |    3% |  0% |
    | Greeks working  |   65% |   18% |    4% |  0% |
    | USA working     |   66% |   43% |   20% |  5% |
65% of Greeks age 55-59 are working, while only 61% of Germans are. More Germans age 60-64 are working than Greeks, but slightly more Greeks age up to 69 are working.

> I also believe that we should hear much more about what the country will do to improve productivity and work harder.

Yes, when will the Germans learn to work as hard as citizens of the USA?

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

#119

Post by dang »

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 [...] anarcho-communist-syndicalist grufties

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#120

Post by dang »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #35
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…

And this response shows that you know nothing about economics or finance. > do something again the blatant corruption, burocratie and tax evasion Corruption and tax evasion are an economic problem, not a moral one. People decide whether or not to pay taxes based on many factors - convenience, value, habit, punishment, etc... In a 'developing' economy, like Greece, if there's a history of not paying taxes, you need to…

> you know nothing about economics or finance

Please don't do that—it only makes the thread worse, and adds nothing of substance to your comment.

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