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Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

by IslaDeEncanta 9y ago

pif 9y ago
Why? What did he do, apart from letting the Greeks believe they could choose not to refund the debt?
- candiodari 9y ago
  Well he fell on his blade when it became clear Greece wasn't going to default.
  - emptyfile 9y ago
    So quitting politics, in fact retiring, in fact bailing on Greece, to write books and give interviews to Sky is enough to make him an hero to Europe's working class?
    - sgift 9y ago
      > in fact bailing on Greece When politicians stay it's always "bah, bah, no one ever takes responsibility". Now, someone took responsibility and it's "bailing on Greece". Yeah. Sure.
      - ferongr 9y ago
        What kind of responsibility did V-man take? He retired to an academic's cushy life of traveling around the world giving lectures and writing.
        atmosx 9y ago
        He resigned the night of the referendum, when he understood that the government is going to capitulate. Maybe in some countries that's nothing special - as it should be. When you're not on the same page with what the government does, you retire and let someone else who believes in the solution, implement it and then pay the piper. In Greece, I know of NO politician in 50 years, who retired promptly when his views and gov's views stopped being aligned. So regarding Greece, that's a huge deal and gives him alone more credibility that the last 10 Greek governments put together.
      - pweissbrod 9y ago
        Its a fascinating theme I see repeating in political news: * Jah-Rule on fyre festival: "this is not by fault but I take full responsibility" * Hillary Clinton on losing election: "this is misogyny and fake news fault but I take full responsibility" * Heather Bresch on Mylan price gouging: "The real fault is in the supply chain but I take full responsibility"
- gpvos 9y ago
  He made a good case that the creditors were culpable and therefore must release Greece from its debt.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Morally it's on those who give out loans to make sure that they can be repaid. It's wrong that Greece took these huge loans as well, but also it's wrong to suggest that they have to pay them back. Everyone has the option to default when they are unable to pay and this was clearly the situation for Greece (and probably Spain and Italy, maybe even UK soon enough).
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    Exactly. The (German) banks gambled on a bail out; I would not even call it a gamble, since the could be dead sure Schäuble would be standing at attention with the suitcases at the first sign of trouble.
  - pvg 9y ago
    Morally it's on those who give out loans to make sure that they can be repaid. Maybe when dealing with an unsophisticated or under-informed borrower which the sovereign states in question are not.
    - andy_ppp 9y ago
      And you are proved wrong by the fact Greece's government clearly was (still is?) "an unsophisticated or under-informed borrower". I mean the outcome of this borrowing speaks for itself. When I take out a loan a bank usually asks for collateral but these loans to Greece are unsecured and not worth paying back. The banking system should have been left to fail but instead we live in this world where governments bailed them out. Capitalism for the poor and Socialism for the rich.
      - pvg 9y ago
        No, the fact someone takes out loans they can't repay doesn't 'prove' they don't understand the terms of the loan. I don't think any of the major actors in this look particularly great but it's not like the Greek government found a giant bag of money on their doorstep one day and nobody told them it came with terms.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. When that proved to be impossible, he refused to sit by and lend his name to a deal he didn't believe was in Greece or Europe's best interests.
  - pif 9y ago
    > Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. Default is not a solution to repay a debt. You can choose to default, but you can't expect any credibility later. The message Varoufakis sent to Greeks was: "Let's just say we don't want to pay and everyone will forget about in a couple of years."
    - yossarian78 9y ago
      Just like Iceland did?
    - dnautics 9y ago
      Default is a solution if you have a plan to not ever incur sovereign debt. This however is impossible with neoliberal social state governing models.
      - atmosx 9y ago
        Nope, history says otherwise. As long as the debt stands Greece will not be able to get any financing exactly because it's assured that it will not be repaid. The only way to get financing is by debt restructuring. It has happened time and again. You'd be amazed how many countries defaulted the last century. I think Germany defaulted twice.
        pm90 9y ago
        Yeah, I just don't understand how so many people fail to see the most obvious solution: default and stop paying interest. Sure, you're credibility will be lost for now, but then you can slowly build it back up again since you're no longer burdened with paying back the defaulted loans. Its not magical: as it currently stands, Greek economy is going to die a slow protracted death anyways.
mc32 9y ago
He's an interesting guy no doubt, but accounts tell us he was just doing his job. When he went to Germany and tried to force their hands by feigning he might grexit, to his amazement the private response was more or less, how can we help you gtecit? Despite appearances, he did not want grexit and was a ploy to get better terms, but the ecb had already discounted Greece. At least he tried, for sure.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > When he went to Germany and tried to force their hands by feigning he might grexit, to his amazement the private response was more or less, how can we help you gtecit? Despite appearances, he did not want grexit and was a ploy to get better terms.. That's sort of my problem with him though. I don't think of him as either a hero, or a jerk, or a guy doing his job, but simply an idiot. He was trying to bluff with a hand that everyone knew was empty, and of course it didn't work.
  - captainmuon 9y ago
    He's a lot of things, but not an idiot. Varoufakis was one of the few finance ministers who is actually an economist (as opposed to e.g. a jurist), so he was very qualified. But he went into the negotiations thinking that everybody was trying to solve the problem amicably, that they were trying to find a compromize everybody could live with. But no, it was pure power play. Germany and co wanted to keep the status quo of a Greece close to bankrupt that they could boss around. And I think they wanted the left-wing "experiment" to fail under all circumstances, to set an example.
    - _delirium 9y ago
      I think that's part of the problem, Varoufakis is intelligent and an economist, yes, but really not a diplomat, and his job here as Greece's main negotiator was more a diplomat's than an economist's job. He was very naive, as his book somewhat admits, about how EU politics work (and to some extent about Greek politics as well, where he assumed Tsipras was on the same page as he was). Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of Syriza's Left Platform faction that later split from the party, had this criticism [1] about both Varoufakis and his successor Tsakalotos (another economics professor), which I think has some truth to it: Tsakalotos said he was very disappointed by the low level of the discussion. In the interview to the New Statesman, Varoufakis says very similar things about his own experience, although his style is clearly more confrontational than Tsakalotos's. From this it is quite clear that these people were expecting the confrontation with the EU to happen along the lines of an academic conference when you go with a nice paper and you expect a kind of nice counter-paper to be presented. I think this is telling about what the Left is about today. The Left is filled with lots of people who are well-meaning, but who are totally impotent on the field of real politics. [1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvelakis-syriza-euro-debt/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvel...
elorant 9y ago
As a Greek I consider him a jerk. He enforced capital controls due to his incompetence and his ideological approach to financing. Furthermore, he's a pathological liar. While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them. If it wasn't for the group of clowns that constitute the current government and gave him the keys to the economy, nobody would give a flying fuck about what he says. He's a second rate economist at best.
- krona 9y ago
  > While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them. By doing what, exactly? The country was bankrupt. In such a situation, the only sensible thing to do is default. Instead, Greece will be a 3rd world country with almost no public assets, and mass unemployment for decades. Regaining competitiveness through decades of internal devaluation is, to me, far less preferable than default. What Greece was given was like Versailles on steroids. And to make it worse, it's going to happen again, and again. I'd say we're due another club-med crisis any moment now. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/european-debt-bomb-fuse-lit-target2-imbalances-hit-crisis-levels http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/european-debt-bomb-...
  - sgift 9y ago
    Yesterday, there was a news that Greece has reached an agreement for a new round of money in exchange for further cuts to pensions and removal of some tax exemptions. So yeah, it is going to happen again. And again. And again. And all to save a few German and French banks, because politicians feared the results of telling them "you wanted to play in the casino and you lost, now the money is gone" after Lehmann.
    - ricw 9y ago
      Or rather it'll happen again and again until the casino is turned into a viable and competitive economy. I wouldn't blame the Germans and French for trying to contain a crisis at its origin..
ferongr 9y ago
He's not a hero to this one Greek of the "working class". All he managed to do during his tenure was set in montion a series of events that would greatly worsen the financial condition of Greece.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
return0 9y ago
Quite a statement. What does it take one to become a "hero" nowadays? And how is he in any way connected to the working class?
- stefantalpalaru 9y ago
  > What does it take one to become a "hero" nowadays? And how is he in any way connected to the working class? As soon as you're born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all They hurt you at home and they hit you at school They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years Then they expect you to pick a career When you can't really function you're so full of fear Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see There's room at the top they're telling you still But first you must learn how to smile as you kill If you want to be like the folks on the hill A working class hero is something to be A working class hero is something to be

Varoufakis is a hero to the international working class. His most recent book before this one is also excellent.

pif 9y ago

Why? What did he do, apart from letting the Greeks believe they could choose not to refund the debt?

candiodari 9y ago
Well he fell on his blade when it became clear Greece wasn't going to default.
- emptyfile 9y ago
  So quitting politics, in fact retiring, in fact bailing on Greece, to write books and give interviews to Sky is enough to make him an hero to Europe's working class?
  - sgift 9y ago
    > in fact bailing on Greece When politicians stay it's always "bah, bah, no one ever takes responsibility". Now, someone took responsibility and it's "bailing on Greece". Yeah. Sure.
    - ferongr 9y ago
      What kind of responsibility did V-man take? He retired to an academic's cushy life of traveling around the world giving lectures and writing.
      - atmosx 9y ago
        He resigned the night of the referendum, when he understood that the government is going to capitulate. Maybe in some countries that's nothing special - as it should be. When you're not on the same page with what the government does, you retire and let someone else who believes in the solution, implement it and then pay the piper. In Greece, I know of NO politician in 50 years, who retired promptly when his views and gov's views stopped being aligned. So regarding Greece, that's a huge deal and gives him alone more credibility that the last 10 Greek governments put together.
    - pweissbrod 9y ago
      Its a fascinating theme I see repeating in political news: * Jah-Rule on fyre festival: "this is not by fault but I take full responsibility" * Hillary Clinton on losing election: "this is misogyny and fake news fault but I take full responsibility" * Heather Bresch on Mylan price gouging: "The real fault is in the supply chain but I take full responsibility"
gpvos 9y ago
He made a good case that the creditors were culpable and therefore must release Greece from its debt.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Morally it's on those who give out loans to make sure that they can be repaid. It's wrong that Greece took these huge loans as well, but also it's wrong to suggest that they have to pay them back. Everyone has the option to default when they are unable to pay and this was clearly the situation for Greece (and probably Spain and Italy, maybe even UK soon enough).
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  Exactly. The (German) banks gambled on a bail out; I would not even call it a gamble, since the could be dead sure Schäuble would be standing at attention with the suitcases at the first sign of trouble.
- pvg 9y ago
  Morally it's on those who give out loans to make sure that they can be repaid. Maybe when dealing with an unsophisticated or under-informed borrower which the sovereign states in question are not.
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    And you are proved wrong by the fact Greece's government clearly was (still is?) "an unsophisticated or under-informed borrower". I mean the outcome of this borrowing speaks for itself. When I take out a loan a bank usually asks for collateral but these loans to Greece are unsecured and not worth paying back. The banking system should have been left to fail but instead we live in this world where governments bailed them out. Capitalism for the poor and Socialism for the rich.
    - pvg 9y ago
      No, the fact someone takes out loans they can't repay doesn't 'prove' they don't understand the terms of the loan. I don't think any of the major actors in this look particularly great but it's not like the Greek government found a giant bag of money on their doorstep one day and nobody told them it came with terms.
shkkmo 9y ago
Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. When that proved to be impossible, he refused to sit by and lend his name to a deal he didn't believe was in Greece or Europe's best interests.
- pif 9y ago
  > Varoufakis fought to find solutions that would allow Greece to actually be able to repay their debt. Default is not a solution to repay a debt. You can choose to default, but you can't expect any credibility later. The message Varoufakis sent to Greeks was: "Let's just say we don't want to pay and everyone will forget about in a couple of years."
  - yossarian78 9y ago
    Just like Iceland did?
  - dnautics 9y ago
    Default is a solution if you have a plan to not ever incur sovereign debt. This however is impossible with neoliberal social state governing models.
    - atmosx 9y ago
      Nope, history says otherwise. As long as the debt stands Greece will not be able to get any financing exactly because it's assured that it will not be repaid. The only way to get financing is by debt restructuring. It has happened time and again. You'd be amazed how many countries defaulted the last century. I think Germany defaulted twice.
      - pm90 9y ago
        Yeah, I just don't understand how so many people fail to see the most obvious solution: default and stop paying interest. Sure, you're credibility will be lost for now, but then you can slowly build it back up again since you're no longer burdened with paying back the defaulted loans. Its not magical: as it currently stands, Greek economy is going to die a slow protracted death anyways.

mc32 9y ago

He's an interesting guy no doubt, but accounts tell us he was just doing his job. When he went to Germany and tried to force their hands by feigning he might grexit, to his amazement the private response was more or less, how can we help you gtecit? Despite appearances, he did not want grexit and was a ploy to get better terms, but the ecb had already discounted Greece. At least he tried, for sure.

Analemma_ 9y ago
> When he went to Germany and tried to force their hands by feigning he might grexit, to his amazement the private response was more or less, how can we help you gtecit? Despite appearances, he did not want grexit and was a ploy to get better terms.. That's sort of my problem with him though. I don't think of him as either a hero, or a jerk, or a guy doing his job, but simply an idiot. He was trying to bluff with a hand that everyone knew was empty, and of course it didn't work.
- captainmuon 9y ago
  He's a lot of things, but not an idiot. Varoufakis was one of the few finance ministers who is actually an economist (as opposed to e.g. a jurist), so he was very qualified. But he went into the negotiations thinking that everybody was trying to solve the problem amicably, that they were trying to find a compromize everybody could live with. But no, it was pure power play. Germany and co wanted to keep the status quo of a Greece close to bankrupt that they could boss around. And I think they wanted the left-wing "experiment" to fail under all circumstances, to set an example.
  - _delirium 9y ago
    I think that's part of the problem, Varoufakis is intelligent and an economist, yes, but really not a diplomat, and his job here as Greece's main negotiator was more a diplomat's than an economist's job. He was very naive, as his book somewhat admits, about how EU politics work (and to some extent about Greek politics as well, where he assumed Tsipras was on the same page as he was). Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of Syriza's Left Platform faction that later split from the party, had this criticism [1] about both Varoufakis and his successor Tsakalotos (another economics professor), which I think has some truth to it: Tsakalotos said he was very disappointed by the low level of the discussion. In the interview to the New Statesman, Varoufakis says very similar things about his own experience, although his style is clearly more confrontational than Tsakalotos's. From this it is quite clear that these people were expecting the confrontation with the EU to happen along the lines of an academic conference when you go with a nice paper and you expect a kind of nice counter-paper to be presented. I think this is telling about what the Left is about today. The Left is filled with lots of people who are well-meaning, but who are totally impotent on the field of real politics. [1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvelakis-syriza-euro-debt/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvel...

elorant 9y ago

As a Greek I consider him a jerk. He enforced capital controls due to his incompetence and his ideological approach to financing. Furthermore, he's a pathological liar. While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them. If it wasn't for the group of clowns that constitute the current government and gave him the keys to the economy, nobody would give a flying fuck about what he says. He's a second rate economist at best.

krona 9y ago
> While in many occasions he had admitted the faults of the Greek economy he never took specific actions in correcting them. By doing what, exactly? The country was bankrupt. In such a situation, the only sensible thing to do is default. Instead, Greece will be a 3rd world country with almost no public assets, and mass unemployment for decades. Regaining competitiveness through decades of internal devaluation is, to me, far less preferable than default. What Greece was given was like Versailles on steroids. And to make it worse, it's going to happen again, and again. I'd say we're due another club-med crisis any moment now. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/european-debt-bomb-fuse-lit-target2-imbalances-hit-crisis-levels http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/european-debt-bomb-...
- sgift 9y ago
  Yesterday, there was a news that Greece has reached an agreement for a new round of money in exchange for further cuts to pensions and removal of some tax exemptions. So yeah, it is going to happen again. And again. And again. And all to save a few German and French banks, because politicians feared the results of telling them "you wanted to play in the casino and you lost, now the money is gone" after Lehmann.
  - ricw 9y ago
    Or rather it'll happen again and again until the casino is turned into a viable and competitive economy. I wouldn't blame the Germans and French for trying to contain a crisis at its origin..

ferongr 9y ago

He's not a hero to this one Greek of the "working class". All he managed to do during his tenure was set in montion a series of events that would greatly worsen the financial condition of Greece.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

return0 9y ago

Quite a statement. What does it take one to become a "hero" nowadays? And how is he in any way connected to the working class?

stefantalpalaru 9y ago
> What does it take one to become a "hero" nowadays? And how is he in any way connected to the working class? As soon as you're born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all They hurt you at home and they hit you at school They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years Then they expect you to pick a career When you can't really function you're so full of fear Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see There's room at the top they're telling you still But first you must learn how to smile as you kill If you want to be like the folks on the hill A working class hero is something to be A working class hero is something to be