Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by mattlutze » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #45

pfg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Only a small fraction of the €240bn (£170bn) total bailout money Greece received in 2010 and 2012 found its way into the government’s coffers to soften the blow of the 2008 financial crash and fund reform programmes.

> Most of the money went to the banks that lent Greece funds before the crash.

They money from the bailouts went to pay debts that Greece owed on pre-2008 loans, and was not available to the Greek government to be used for social or economic restructuring.

I'm not certain at all what your basis for your comment is.

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

#102

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

taliesinb wrote: post #97

agumonkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't portray the other side objectively That's the hardest part of this whole issue, everyone say something different. Greeks are ..., Germans are ..., Banks are ... As a non educated (in that matter), it's impossible to understand anything without the feeling you end up as a fanboy for some party.

> As a non educated (in that matter), it's impossible to understand anything without the feeling you end up as a fanboy for some party. Well, if you care what the outcome is and you decide you want to see one party prevail, that doesn't turn you into a fanboy. Because maybe there really are good guys and bad guys, or at least massively powerful overdogs who will crush entire underdog nations for realpolitikal advanta…

Actually I want to avoid having to think of it as bad guys vs good guys. And information are mostly (unless you're an insider) guy revealing the truth about the other.

I'd love to have a real map of the economic relationships between banks, investors, governments.

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

#103

Post by Tomte » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #66

stewbrew wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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

#104

Post by madink » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #100

junto wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The undelying point Schauble is subtly trying to make is that you cannot switch back to an alternative currency without help from outsiders. Iraq needed US help, as was recently noted in the Guardian: "In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the US military’s might, three printing firms and hundreds of trucks. In the absence of such support,…

Of course they could. 6th largest economy on earth, with a functional banking system and plenty of resources at their disposal. They're not Iraq or Greece.

And guess what the far right will do if elected in france ?

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

#105

Post by cuillevel3 » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:43 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #62

adamc wrote: post #8

I wonder what effect the current EU "offer" to Greece will have on Britain's vote down the line, or on other states that may now have second thoughts about joining the euro. From my (American) perspective, it looks like being part of the Euro means giving Germany an awful lot of influence over your fiscal policy.

It has no real bearing, but it does provide us with a view of what is going on behind the scenes in the tunnels of power in Brussels. Remember that Britain is planning on a referendum to stay or leave the EU, not join the Euro. That is highly unlikely to ever happen, and after recent events I think it is absolutely clear that the ECB cannot be trusted not to use the Euro as a weapon of mass economic destruction. I wa…

> The Euro though is a different matter. It is dividing the EU. It is creating the have's and have not's. It is being used as an economic nuclear weapon in order to force the will of one nations economic culture and expectations on to others.

Maybe it is, but the Greek problems started decades ago, years before the Euro.

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

#106

Post by jazzyk » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

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…

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. Ordinary people did not see much of this money. And the money spent on bailouts since 2010 was just bailing out private banks and saddling euro taxpayers with the bill.

By the way, Germany is not exactly a stranger to corruption (compared to other northern states in Europe):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Germany

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

#107

Post by cuillevel3 » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

I had such high hopes for Varoufakis and now I can't agree with a single word he says.

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

#108

Post by jazzyk » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

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…

I think of myself as a moderate libertarian, so I may not agree with Mr Varoufakis.

But I sure can appreciate him speaking English rather than some bureaucratic newspeak that is the norm among elected (and non-elected) officials.

And I can appreciate that he deeply cares for his people over holding on to his government job.

I will take occasional hyperboles over content-free mambo-jumbo any time.

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

#109

Post by cuillevel3 » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:09 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Let me cite from another economist, Hans-Werner Sinn:

"At that time (late March 2010), French banks had a 53 billion euro exposure to private and public instances in Greece, the German ones a 33-billion euro exposure, the US 10 billion, and the UK 9 billion. [....] At the end of March 2015, the sum of current account deficits accumulated since early 2008 was 108 billion euros, equivalent to one-third of the multilateral and intergovernmental loans provided to Greece, which amounted to 325 billion euros. Two-thirds of the public credit was thus apparently used to finance capital flight and one-third to finance the current account deficit – ultimately the living standard that could no longer be financed with the income of the Greek citizenry. Thus, over the entire crisis period it can hardly be argued that barely 10 percent of the public credit benefited the Greek people, as Finance Minister Varoufakis does. Apart from the above, Greek debtors benefited from the fact that the international community helped them meet their obligations towards foreign creditors, and also made it possible for them to bring their wealth out of the country."

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

#110

Post by MagnumOpus » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #106

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…

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 victim status because they just couldn't resist those submarines and tanks despite not being able to pay... If you are looking for large unnecessary contributors for Greek debt, why don't you start at the $15bn Olympic Games (no doubt they were forced on Greeks by the German manufacturing firms, too).

> Germany is not exactly a stranger to corruption

Sometimes orders of magnitude matters. It does matter whether the rate of tax payment non-compliance is 5% or 50%, even if it does not fit the narrative of moral equivalence.