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Here are the thoughts of Steve Keen (an economist) about Varoufakis[1] on BBC and this how the BBC, the economist and largely every other mainstream media outle

by atmosx 12y ago

Here are the thoughts of Steve Keen (an economist) about Varoufakis[1] on BBC and this how the BBC, the economist and largely every other mainstream media outlet describes Varoufakis[2]. I saw since day-1 Varoufakis described as "self-acclaimed marxist left wing/radical finance minister". A description which in the western has more than a touch of negativity. On the other side you see e.g. Jeroen Dijsselbloem[3] being presented as "President of the Eurogroup" and/or "President of the ESM", while he could be easily be described in the same vein as a "Right-right wing, non-economist with a false degree[4]". Unfortunately that's the level of journalism we are up against. Greece apart, if one takes the time to listen Varoufakis talking, then he understands that he is an exceptionally knowledgeable man. He has a deep knowledge of his domain and he speaks his mind - which is rare for a politician and got him in to troubles with the media more than once - all to often and in a very loud and clear manner. I'm not sure if can pull out anything positive for Greece, because other than bailing Greece out, there is no way (for the Greeks at least) out of this spiral: Following the EUs terms is equally if not (much?) more catastrophic than leaving the common currency (even without leaving the EuroZone for military/geopolitical reasons). [1] http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2015/02/05/talking-about-yanis-on-the-bbc/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2015/02/05/talking-about-... [2] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/bill-black-bbc-dismisses-real-greek-economist-sexy-ideologue.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/bill-black-bbc-dismis... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeroen_Dijsselbloem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeroen_Dijsselbloem [4] http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dutch-finance-minister-amends-cork-university-degree-error-29195279.html http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/dutch-finance-minister-...

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Have you read Pettis on the subject? Similar views on prospects - there has to be a bailout, but his view is that there is a bailout - somehow or other someone will pay the debt, European taxpayers probably, but we can have a managed fair debt reallocation or we can have a disastrous collapse. My fear is unelected officials trying to smack down democratically elected wishes will lead to a collapse not just in Greece but elsewhere.
- danmaz74 12y ago
  > unelected officials trying to smack down democratically elected wishes Didn't it come to your mind that it's first of all the voters of other EU countries that don't want to pay for Greece's debt with their taxes? It's not the unelected officials' money we're talking about here.
  - biehl 12y ago
    You mean, they want the greeks to pay for their (mostly french and german) bankers poor investments?
    - peterfirefly 12y ago
      You mean, the Greeks want Northern/Eastern Europe to pay for Greek vote buying?
      - danmaz74 12y ago
        Why "Nothern/Eastern" Europe? Italy for example contributed 40 billion of the 240 billions that were used for the bailout so far.
        peterfirefly 12y ago
        Very good question. Mostly because Italy (and France) itself is in danger. Do we think the money really is there if it is needed? And that it won't push Italy (and France) over the brink?
        danmaz74 12y ago
        I just don't like bundling the "north" vs "south" of the EU. Yes Italy and Spain were in dangerous waters if you looked at the interest rate differentials with Germany, but they paid their quota of the bailout like everybody else - so they saved Greece as much as everybody else. Actually, they contributed much more than the new North-Eastern EU states, which have a much lower GDP (both total and per capita).
lumberjack 12y ago
Wouldn't projecting Syriza as more leftist than they really are, be good marketing for them among Greeks?
- _delirium 12y ago
  At the moment, probably yes: the most effective attack on them in Greek media of the past month or so, which has reduced their popularity, is to portray them as "same boss, new suit (but no tie)". A big joke in particular has been over Varoufakis's use of the term "the institutions" as a substitute for the now-banned "troika". Part of Syriza's election platform was that Greek domestic policy would no longer be controlled by memoranda with "the troika" (IMF, EU, ECB). But now they talk about reaching agreements with "the institutions", who happen to be the exact same three institutions. So the wording change is widely seen as a bit of a farce.
- return0 12y ago
  Varoufakis is quite rightwing compared to his other 'comrades' who still live in the cold war.
randomname2 12y ago
How is Dijsselbloem even remotely close to being right-wing?
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Yeah, kind of nonsense. He's part of the Labour party here, definitely not right wing. It's true that Labour in Europe made a big swing towards right. It's now more often firmly at the centre, instead of left of centre, on a host of economic issues. And so you could then say he's rightish, especially in his European position as opposed to his Party position in the Netherlands... but then you can throw a lot of terms out of the window and it becomes impossible to label anything anymore. For example, in Europe we tend to consider most Democrats to be Rightish-Wing, and consider most Republicans just 'way out there', the notion that democrats are leftist is kind of ridiculous here. Left would be the Green Party for example. But we call them left because in the spectrum of dem/reps in the US, they're relatively left. We could say they're both 'right' and then come up with other differentiating words to describe em, but it never really catches on... Same with Labour on a national level, Dijsselbloem is part of labour and labour is generally left in the political spectrum of a country, for what it's worth.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    On monetary issues I think it's fair to say that many European center-left finance ministers (excluding perhaps French ones) are rather towards the right, at least since the 1990s. On fiscal policy center-left European governments are left-ish, supporting high taxation which pays for a social welfare state. But when compared to Americans on monetary policy, they tend to have positions closer to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party, closer to orthodox neoliberal views (Milton Friedman, etc.) than to Keynesian or MMT style views regarding proper management of government debt, business cycles, and recessions. Which I think is one of the disconnects: even when Varoufakis advocates pretty mainstream Keynesianism that would be center-left in the U.S., he's perceived as being quite far left. (It doesn't help that he occasionally describes himself as "Marxist", but his actual proposals bear a lot more resemblance to Keynesian economics than Marxian economics.)
simonebrunozzi 12y ago
I met with Yanis a bit over a year ago in Austin, to interview him for a book on Bitcoin that I haven't completed yet (too much work with my full-time job). He is clever, has a vast knowledge, and you're right, he "speaks his mind". Rare, but valuable.

by atmosx 12y ago

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

Have you read Pettis on the subject? Similar views on prospects - there has to be a bailout, but his view is that there is a bailout - somehow or other someone will pay the debt, European taxpayers probably, but we can have a managed fair debt reallocation or we can have a disastrous collapse. My fear is unelected officials trying to smack down democratically elected wishes will lead to a collapse not just in Greece but elsewhere.

danmaz74 12y ago
> unelected officials trying to smack down democratically elected wishes Didn't it come to your mind that it's first of all the voters of other EU countries that don't want to pay for Greece's debt with their taxes? It's not the unelected officials' money we're talking about here.
- biehl 12y ago
  You mean, they want the greeks to pay for their (mostly french and german) bankers poor investments?
  - peterfirefly 12y ago
    You mean, the Greeks want Northern/Eastern Europe to pay for Greek vote buying?
    - danmaz74 12y ago
      Why "Nothern/Eastern" Europe? Italy for example contributed 40 billion of the 240 billions that were used for the bailout so far.
      - peterfirefly 12y ago
        Very good question. Mostly because Italy (and France) itself is in danger. Do we think the money really is there if it is needed? And that it won't push Italy (and France) over the brink?
        danmaz74 12y ago
        I just don't like bundling the "north" vs "south" of the EU. Yes Italy and Spain were in dangerous waters if you looked at the interest rate differentials with Germany, but they paid their quota of the bailout like everybody else - so they saved Greece as much as everybody else. Actually, they contributed much more than the new North-Eastern EU states, which have a much lower GDP (both total and per capita).

lumberjack 12y ago

Wouldn't projecting Syriza as more leftist than they really are, be good marketing for them among Greeks?

_delirium 12y ago
At the moment, probably yes: the most effective attack on them in Greek media of the past month or so, which has reduced their popularity, is to portray them as "same boss, new suit (but no tie)". A big joke in particular has been over Varoufakis's use of the term "the institutions" as a substitute for the now-banned "troika". Part of Syriza's election platform was that Greek domestic policy would no longer be controlled by memoranda with "the troika" (IMF, EU, ECB). But now they talk about reaching agreements with "the institutions", who happen to be the exact same three institutions. So the wording change is widely seen as a bit of a farce.
return0 12y ago
Varoufakis is quite rightwing compared to his other 'comrades' who still live in the cold war.

randomname2 12y ago

How is Dijsselbloem even remotely close to being right-wing?

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Yeah, kind of nonsense. He's part of the Labour party here, definitely not right wing. It's true that Labour in Europe made a big swing towards right. It's now more often firmly at the centre, instead of left of centre, on a host of economic issues. And so you could then say he's rightish, especially in his European position as opposed to his Party position in the Netherlands... but then you can throw a lot of terms out of the window and it becomes impossible to label anything anymore. For example, in Europe we tend to consider most Democrats to be Rightish-Wing, and consider most Republicans just 'way out there', the notion that democrats are leftist is kind of ridiculous here. Left would be the Green Party for example. But we call them left because in the spectrum of dem/reps in the US, they're relatively left. We could say they're both 'right' and then come up with other differentiating words to describe em, but it never really catches on... Same with Labour on a national level, Dijsselbloem is part of labour and labour is generally left in the political spectrum of a country, for what it's worth.
- _delirium 12y ago
  On monetary issues I think it's fair to say that many European center-left finance ministers (excluding perhaps French ones) are rather towards the right, at least since the 1990s. On fiscal policy center-left European governments are left-ish, supporting high taxation which pays for a social welfare state. But when compared to Americans on monetary policy, they tend to have positions closer to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party, closer to orthodox neoliberal views (Milton Friedman, etc.) than to Keynesian or MMT style views regarding proper management of government debt, business cycles, and recessions. Which I think is one of the disconnects: even when Varoufakis advocates pretty mainstream Keynesianism that would be center-left in the U.S., he's perceived as being quite far left. (It doesn't help that he occasionally describes himself as "Marxist", but his actual proposals bear a lot more resemblance to Keynesian economics than Marxian economics.)

simonebrunozzi 12y ago

I met with Yanis a bit over a year ago in Austin, to interview him for a book on Bitcoin that I haven't completed yet (too much work with my full-time job). He is clever, has a vast knowledge, and you're right, he "speaks his mind". Rare, but valuable.