4 ms·

> he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. According to him, as a professional e

by xfs 7y ago

> he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. According to him, as a professional economist, the Euro is structurally unsustainable and is going to implode in the next 2008 because of the way the EU is set up politically creating a situation of a central bank without a country and countries without central banks. What angered him is the way Eurogroup bureaucrats pretend this situation does not exist, even when they themselves admit they understand the same thing, which, to an academic like him, is a crime against logic.

mrtksn 7y ago
See, here is the problem: This was not the topic of the meetings. They did not convene there to fix the grand issue that was well known since the inception of the Euro. Not really a scientific discovery he made, a hot topic since ever. Some professional economists argue that the current capitalist economy is not sustainable, how well do you think it will go if an economist brings this up in his meeting with his bank about the restructuring of his debt he/she racked up? It's simply ridiculous. It's like those tech people over-obsessed with the technical aspect of an issue who get a managerial job and screwing up royally, get fired and keep bugging people about how company X is doomed because they did not implement his tech idea. He simply did not understand what job he got and where he is. He thought that he had all the answers for all the problems of the world and he can fix them in those meetings with the eurocrats but they did not listen to him. It's cringie.
- xfs 7y ago
  I'm not talking about the meetings either. The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy." The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    Okay, he could have not capitulated and let the electorate face the music of their decision. It was a referendum among the Greek people about what their government should do. You can't hold a referendum about what other people should give them. The UK got a Brexit referendum and they got out. Nobody would have cared if they held "EU gives as market access but we do not allow Europeans coming over and work referendum" which is what the UK essentially wants.
    - xfs 7y ago
      He could. He was committed to a Grexit, which he calculated to be substantially better for Greece than what it has now. Then he got immense political pressure and death threats to his family.
      - mrtksn 7y ago
        Right, the eurocrats threatened his family and political pressure is something that no politician should ever go through.
      - rumanator 7y ago
        > He was committed to a Grexit, That was his personal political goal but not Greece's collective goal or will, and he did nothing more than to run political manoevers to try to manipulate Greeks to assume there was a ridiculous conspiracy by the whole world against them.
rumanator 7y ago
> Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. That assumption doesn't hold to scrutiny. If he was half as attentive as you portray him or if he actually cared about reality of the situation or how to fix Greece's economic problem, Varoufakis wouldn't have repeatedly pinned Nazi comparisons on Germany's government has he did, not to mention the Russia stunts. In fact, Varoufakis' erratic political behavior and systematic diplomatic and political screwups are more in line with a political plan to render a solution within he scope of EU and the euro completely impossible, and in the meanwhile create conditions to force Greece out of the euro, EU and even NATO, which incidentally line up with his ideals and contrast with the will of the Greek people.
- the_why_of_y 7y ago
  > Varoufakis wouldn't have repeatedly pinned Nazi comparisons on Germany's government Citation please? A quick search finds that he did exactly the opposite: "Germany must be proud of the fact that Nazism has been eradicated here," he said in a press conference with his German counterpart. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31170591 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31170591

by xfs 7y ago

mrtksn 7y ago

See, here is the problem: This was not the topic of the meetings. They did not convene there to fix the grand issue that was well known since the inception of the Euro. Not really a scientific discovery he made, a hot topic since ever. Some professional economists argue that the current capitalist economy is not sustainable, how well do you think it will go if an economist brings this up in his meeting with his bank about the restructuring of his debt he/she racked up? It's simply ridiculous. It's like those tech people over-obsessed with the technical aspect of an issue who get a managerial job and screwing up royally, get fired and keep bugging people about how company X is doomed because they did not implement his tech idea. He simply did not understand what job he got and where he is. He thought that he had all the answers for all the problems of the world and he can fix them in those meetings with the eurocrats but they did not listen to him. It's cringie.

xfs 7y ago
I'm not talking about the meetings either. The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy." The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  Okay, he could have not capitulated and let the electorate face the music of their decision. It was a referendum among the Greek people about what their government should do. You can't hold a referendum about what other people should give them. The UK got a Brexit referendum and they got out. Nobody would have cared if they held "EU gives as market access but we do not allow Europeans coming over and work referendum" which is what the UK essentially wants.
  - xfs 7y ago
    He could. He was committed to a Grexit, which he calculated to be substantially better for Greece than what it has now. Then he got immense political pressure and death threats to his family.
    - mrtksn 7y ago
      Right, the eurocrats threatened his family and political pressure is something that no politician should ever go through.
    - rumanator 7y ago
      > He was committed to a Grexit, That was his personal political goal but not Greece's collective goal or will, and he did nothing more than to run political manoevers to try to manipulate Greeks to assume there was a ridiculous conspiracy by the whole world against them.

rumanator 7y ago

> Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. That assumption doesn't hold to scrutiny. If he was half as attentive as you portray him or if he actually cared about reality of the situation or how to fix Greece's economic problem, Varoufakis wouldn't have repeatedly pinned Nazi comparisons on Germany's government has he did, not to mention the Russia stunts. In fact, Varoufakis' erratic political behavior and systematic diplomatic and political screwups are more in line with a political plan to render a solution within he scope of EU and the euro completely impossible, and in the meanwhile create conditions to force Greece out of the euro, EU and even NATO, which incidentally line up with his ideals and contrast with the will of the Greek people.

the_why_of_y 7y ago
> Varoufakis wouldn't have repeatedly pinned Nazi comparisons on Germany's government Citation please? A quick search finds that he did exactly the opposite: "Germany must be proud of the fact that Nazism has been eradicated here," he said in a press conference with his German counterpart. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31170591 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31170591