7 ms·

Varoufakis reveals cloak and dagger 'Plan B' for Greece, awaits treason charges

68 points by k-mcgrady 11y ago

JacobAldridge 11y ago
Frankly, I would think it irresponsible if the Greek government did not have a Plan B in place - be it parallel payments or a return to the Drachma. If (when?) it becomes necessary to do so, such a plan would need to be implemented with haste - they won't have the luxury of telling the markets "we'll be doing this in 3 months, once we work out the details".
- BenjiBG 11y ago
  I agree that they wouldn't have the time to tell the markets or other countries. But Tsipras and Varoufakis didn't even tell the Greek Government. And hacking a bank is still illegal.
  - nl 11y ago
    It's not "a" bank, it was the (government controlled) Bank of Greece. Varoufakis - as finance minster - had responsibility for that, which arguably makes what he ordered not actually illegal (because the records would have been transferred between two areas under his control within the government).
    - Tomte 11y ago
      As all central banks in the Eurozone, the Bank of Greece is not government-controlled, but independant.
      - nl 11y ago
        That simplifies the actual situation. Yes - in common with most central banks it is supposed to be independent. However It ... acts as a treasurer and fiscal agent for the Greek government[1] and is partially owned by the Greek government (35%) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Greece
        Tomte 11y ago
        No, you try to confuse the issue. The finance Minister of Greece has no authority to order the BoG around re: fiscal policy, nor has he any right to seize its money.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > The finance Minister of Greece has no authority to order the BoG around re: fiscal policy AFAIK, this is incorrect. The government orders that bank with regard to fiscal actions (that's what the "fiscal agent" role means.) Monetary policy is another thing.
        Tomte 11y ago
        You're right, I confused those two.
        nl 11y ago
        Bank of Greece shareholdings: https://www.nbg.gr/english/the-group/corporate-governance/shareholder-structure/Documents/NBG_EN_Shareholders_Structure_30.06.2015.pdf https://www.nbg.gr/english/the-group/corporate-governance/sh... That 57% owned by the HFSF? That's the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund[1], the management of which is controlled by the Greek government[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_Fund#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_F...
- tptacek 11y ago
  Plan B in this case case seems to have been for the currently dominant political party to seize the Greek treasury, arrest the leader of the Greek central bank, and use their access to design by fiat, without parliament, a whole new financial system for the country. This seems approximately akin to, say, Ted Cruz being elected next year, another financial crisis happening shortly thereafter, and Cruz (a) arresting Janet Yellen (b) seizing control of the Federal Reserve and (c) switching us from the dollar back to Continentals.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    Except to complete the analogy, add 5+ years of great depression with no end in sight (huge foreign debt, GDP in the dumps, 25% unemployment, etc.), the previous political leadership completely discredited after going back on their campaign promises and driving the country into the ground, and undemocratic foreign institutions dictating policy demanding we keep the country in permanent misery. In such circumstances, I can well imagine a radical politician getting elected and taking drastic measures. FDR winning election and taking the country off the gold standard is a not incomparable situation from American history.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I think there's a distinction that needs to be drawn between the need for some drastic measure to decouple the Greek economy from it's disastrous management by the Troika and the methods used to accomplish it. What makes todays reports bombshells isn't the idea that Tsipras (more accurately, the Syriza Left Platform) had a Plan B involving the drachma. Approximately everyone who reported on the Greece/EU showdown noted that Plan B would somehow involve the restoration of the drachma. The bombshell is that they had a plan to do it by fiat, extrajudicially, in the process seizing 10-15Bn EU from the Greek treasury in the hope that they could parcel the money --- which wasn't properly theirs --- to keep the government running during the transition. The reports suggest Left Platform, Varoufakis, and Tsipras were planning on rewriting the entire Greek financial system, without any consultation with the Greek people beyond the agreement of the Left Platform faction.
- templl 11y ago
  Also everyone concerned knew that plan-b would likley involve a coup on the central bank. And Varoufakis talked about the rest in his blog [0]. [0] http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/02/15/bitcoin-a-flawed-currency-blueprint-with-a-potentially-useful-application-for-the-eurozone/ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/02/15/bitcoin-a-flawed-curren...
msandford 11y ago
I can't see how that's in any way treasonous. Treason is going against your country. Investigating an alternative monetary system -- at the request of the prime minister -- hardly seems like treason. Especially if you're the finance minister. Keeping it a secret doesn't make it treason either. Treason would be to defect from Greece to the IMF or ECB or Germany with information to sink Greece and eliminate any kind of negotiating power that they might have.
- Tomte 11y ago
  No? Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament and preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification sounds fine to you? It would have been the ultimate power grab by Syriza, going against all laws and democracy. Just because Syriza got a majority in the elections doesn't mean the rule of law has been suspended.
  - msandford 11y ago
    > preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification Where did you see that? I didn't see that talked about anywhere. I literally did a ctrl-f in the article for "arrest" and it didn't show up anywhere. > Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament Yeah that might be weirder. Was Varoufakis supposed to turn the prime minister in the second he suggested it? Start proceedings to impeach him? I get that there are lawful orders and unlawful orders. How do you tell which is which? Especially given that Greece's creditors are talking about some serious financial consequences. If the US had only UK owned banks, and the UK government was pressuring the banks to all be closed so as to choke the US via the banking system there's an argument to be made that the US government has not only the right but the duty to take things over. I'm not saying it would be popular, and it might not be strictly legal. But I'm not sure that the UN authorizes financial terrorism either. The whole thing is pretty crazy to think about. It shouldn't be surprising that people were contemplating crazy solutions to crazy problems.
    - Tomte 11y ago
sgdesign 11y ago
A currency-independent parallel banking system that uses smartphone apps sounds like a very cool thing, actually. It almost makes me wish that we had a chance to see it implemented.
BenjiBG 11y ago
This is how absolutistic ruling starts. Most often from crisis and always with the excuse to do good for the country. I agree to some comments here that they needed a plan B, but you can't overstep your even as prime minister or finance minister given authority. Kim Jong-un states that he's just protecting his people from the evil rest of the world.
asgard1024 11y ago
It's sad to see them (Varoufakis/Tsipras) being crucified for this. Ironically, it was the Eurozone "leadership" that used threat of Grexit in negotiations, by not accepting any compromise. It only shows they have the "punish someone" mentality, at the cost of Eurozone's future. I guess that's politics, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Couple days ago, Tsipras was criticized for not having plan B.
- tptacek 11y ago
  It's not that they had a Plan B, but what that plan was. Their Plan B was essentially a coup, instrumented through the financial system.
  - asgard1024 11y ago
    I am genuinely curious - what would be a correct Plan B? I am not sure how could you have a Grexit without it being a coup. Personally, I am not a big fan of central bank independence, as a concept. There is always some dependence, because institutions are staffed and constructed by humans, and I think proclaiming independence is a bit muddy in democracy. If Tsipras took control over Greek Central Bank, it would still have greater democratic legitimacy than the control Eurozone leaders have over ECB (the fact they have some I think can be seen from the fact that ECB didn't provide liquidity to Greece before the referendum - really independent CB in a monetary union would have to do that anyway and let the politicians face the consequences). (I am really torn here, because, even though I wish Eurozone to succeed, sadly, the existence of EZ and ECB was not established in a democratic process, as it should.)
    - Tomte 11y ago
      Easy: let parliament vote for Grexit.
      - fwn 11y ago
        That's not practical. The plans would've been leaked and people would've tried to take advantage of it. The idea that a parliamentary decision would have been better than one from the cabinet because the legitimating chain would've been slightly shorter sounds like a rather esoteric reason to judge their actions on. But as opponents this is a great opportunity. They'll get crushed, I guess.
tptacek 11y ago
Here's FT's (much better) reporting: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2a0a1d94-3201-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html#axzz3h3txW2p8 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2a0a1d94-3201-11e5-8873-775ba... (The headline is "Syriza’s covert plot during crisis talks to return to drachma" if you want to Google it because of the registration wall).
- dvdgsng 11y ago
  mirror at archive.is: https://archive.is/UUioO https://archive.is/UUioO
- rurban 11y ago
  "Much better" is very questionable in this context. It's a aggressive right-winger view point, which again does everything to denounce Syriza as left-wing radicals and supporters, which is explicitly against Syriza's own point of view. Which is a center-left EU-friendly party, holding up to Keynesian principles. And they call it "plot", where it was a normal grexit plan. It was very similar to the EU troika "plot"/plan for their grexit scenario, throwing them out of the Eurozone. And the Troika actually performed parts of their "evil" plan. Draghi illegally stopped ECB support to blackmail them. Did FT report this as such?
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    Indeed one thing I find shocking is the assumption, even among very smart people, that Syriza is too far left. Too left for what? They are reacting as if it were a Soviet-aligned Communist party with a plan to cancel elections. This kind of narrow "crush anything that isn't neoliberal capitalism" paranoia is going to make the the crunch even more painful when disemployment really comes into play.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Well, part of their plan was to raise 10-20bn from Russia to prop up their economy, and the whole plan was extralegal, so I'm not sure that's too far off the mark.
- 11y ago
nl 11y ago
I wish there was a really good source for analysis on the Greek situation that ignored value judgements of what "should" happen. To me it appears that Varoufakis is the Bobby Fischer of economics at the moment[1]. Of course he had a plan to keep the Greek economy (somewhat) alive if Grexit occurred. It would astonish me if some details of the plan hadn't been leaked to the EU - the Greeks would want them to know about it. Varoufakis's resignation/sacking was beautifully timed to setup the idea that the Greeks would make some concessions, but couldn't be pushed much further. And the purpose of this latest thing isn't to protect Varoufakis against treason charges, it it to drive a bigger wedge between Germany and France before August 20. (As an aside, Varoufakis used to be Valve's staff economist, and he's a published game theorist. He's pretty good a playing slight differences in motivations against each other) [1] http://genius.com/3889915 http://genius.com/3889915
- MagnumOpus 11y ago
  If this summer's negotiations were a deliberate chess move, they are akin to manoeuvring yourself into a Fool's Mate. Closing all banks for the largest part of a month sinks your economy at a faster pace than any austerity ever could. The country was on the path to recovery since last year but this summer has caused another implosion in economic activity similar to a devaluation - all without getting the eventual side benefits of an actual Grexit.
AndrewKemendo 11y ago
I think the most interesting part was this: The payments would be 'IOUs' based on an experiment by California after the Lehman crisis. Indicating that precedents set in the US are being used for entire economies - pretty interesting.
- Lazare 11y ago
  Keep in mind, Greece is a lot smaller than California. :)
templl 11y ago
The people orchestraiting the integration of the eurozone want a greek crisis. They need the greek crisis in order to gain political support for the next phase which is fiscal integration. They will generate fear and disorder and then the people would be willing to agree upon the fiscal integration of europe. Varoufakis knows this very well, to quote from the article: "And he (German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble) said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French that which Paris has been resisting: a degree of transfer of budget-making powers from Paris to Brussels." Varoufakis
- Tomte 11y ago
  If you believe Varoufakis. It may be Schäuble's game plan, I cannot know about it, but telling all about it to Varoufakis? That's akin to James Bond's opponents always disclosing their secret master plan just before they think they're going to kill Bond. Real world doesn't work like that. I simply find it implausible. Why should Schäuble admit to all that openly in a discussion with him? What good would it do? Nothing: if it ever came out (and Varoufakis has constantly been talking to the press), France will be alienated and his alleged goal will be even farther away. It simply does not add up.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    You're making the assumption that Schäuble is a reasonable man, which he's proven amply not to be.
    - Tomte 11y ago
      Character assassination won't make you look any better.
      - Mithaldu 11y ago
        Your point is: The things Varoufakis claims Schäuble said and did would not have been said or done by a reasonable person. To that i am pointing out that Schäuble has in the past said and done many things that were entirely unreasonable, even if some may have been meant well.
throwitup 11y ago
V for Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M

68 points by k-mcgrady 11y ago

Frankly, I would think it irresponsible if the Greek government did not have a Plan B in place - be it parallel payments or a return to the Drachma. If (when?) it becomes necessary to do so, such a plan would need to be implemented with haste - they won't have the luxury of telling the markets "we'll be doing this in 3 months, once we work out the details".

BenjiBG 11y ago
I agree that they wouldn't have the time to tell the markets or other countries. But Tsipras and Varoufakis didn't even tell the Greek Government. And hacking a bank is still illegal.
- nl 11y ago
  It's not "a" bank, it was the (government controlled) Bank of Greece. Varoufakis - as finance minster - had responsibility for that, which arguably makes what he ordered not actually illegal (because the records would have been transferred between two areas under his control within the government).
  - Tomte 11y ago
    As all central banks in the Eurozone, the Bank of Greece is not government-controlled, but independant.
    - nl 11y ago
      That simplifies the actual situation. Yes - in common with most central banks it is supposed to be independent. However It ... acts as a treasurer and fiscal agent for the Greek government[1] and is partially owned by the Greek government (35%) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Greece
      - Tomte 11y ago
        No, you try to confuse the issue. The finance Minister of Greece has no authority to order the BoG around re: fiscal policy, nor has he any right to seize its money.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > The finance Minister of Greece has no authority to order the BoG around re: fiscal policy AFAIK, this is incorrect. The government orders that bank with regard to fiscal actions (that's what the "fiscal agent" role means.) Monetary policy is another thing.
        Tomte 11y ago
        You're right, I confused those two.
        nl 11y ago
        Bank of Greece shareholdings: https://www.nbg.gr/english/the-group/corporate-governance/shareholder-structure/Documents/NBG_EN_Shareholders_Structure_30.06.2015.pdf https://www.nbg.gr/english/the-group/corporate-governance/sh... That 57% owned by the HFSF? That's the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund[1], the management of which is controlled by the Greek government[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_Fund#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Financial_Stability_F...
tptacek 11y ago
Plan B in this case case seems to have been for the currently dominant political party to seize the Greek treasury, arrest the leader of the Greek central bank, and use their access to design by fiat, without parliament, a whole new financial system for the country. This seems approximately akin to, say, Ted Cruz being elected next year, another financial crisis happening shortly thereafter, and Cruz (a) arresting Janet Yellen (b) seizing control of the Federal Reserve and (c) switching us from the dollar back to Continentals.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Except to complete the analogy, add 5+ years of great depression with no end in sight (huge foreign debt, GDP in the dumps, 25% unemployment, etc.), the previous political leadership completely discredited after going back on their campaign promises and driving the country into the ground, and undemocratic foreign institutions dictating policy demanding we keep the country in permanent misery. In such circumstances, I can well imagine a radical politician getting elected and taking drastic measures. FDR winning election and taking the country off the gold standard is a not incomparable situation from American history.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I think there's a distinction that needs to be drawn between the need for some drastic measure to decouple the Greek economy from it's disastrous management by the Troika and the methods used to accomplish it. What makes todays reports bombshells isn't the idea that Tsipras (more accurately, the Syriza Left Platform) had a Plan B involving the drachma. Approximately everyone who reported on the Greece/EU showdown noted that Plan B would somehow involve the restoration of the drachma. The bombshell is that they had a plan to do it by fiat, extrajudicially, in the process seizing 10-15Bn EU from the Greek treasury in the hope that they could parcel the money --- which wasn't properly theirs --- to keep the government running during the transition. The reports suggest Left Platform, Varoufakis, and Tsipras were planning on rewriting the entire Greek financial system, without any consultation with the Greek people beyond the agreement of the Left Platform faction.
templl 11y ago
Also everyone concerned knew that plan-b would likley involve a coup on the central bank. And Varoufakis talked about the rest in his blog [0]. [0] http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/02/15/bitcoin-a-flawed-currency-blueprint-with-a-potentially-useful-application-for-the-eurozone/ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/02/15/bitcoin-a-flawed-curren...

msandford 11y ago

I can't see how that's in any way treasonous. Treason is going against your country. Investigating an alternative monetary system -- at the request of the prime minister -- hardly seems like treason. Especially if you're the finance minister. Keeping it a secret doesn't make it treason either. Treason would be to defect from Greece to the IMF or ECB or Germany with information to sink Greece and eliminate any kind of negotiating power that they might have.

Tomte 11y ago
No? Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament and preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification sounds fine to you? It would have been the ultimate power grab by Syriza, going against all laws and democracy. Just because Syriza got a majority in the elections doesn't mean the rule of law has been suspended.
- msandford 11y ago
  > preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification Where did you see that? I didn't see that talked about anywhere. I literally did a ctrl-f in the article for "arrest" and it didn't show up anywhere. > Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament Yeah that might be weirder. Was Varoufakis supposed to turn the prime minister in the second he suggested it? Start proceedings to impeach him? I get that there are lawful orders and unlawful orders. How do you tell which is which? Especially given that Greece's creditors are talking about some serious financial consequences. If the US had only UK owned banks, and the UK government was pressuring the banks to all be closed so as to choke the US via the banking system there's an argument to be made that the US government has not only the right but the duty to take things over. I'm not saying it would be popular, and it might not be strictly legal. But I'm not sure that the UN authorizes financial terrorism either. The whole thing is pretty crazy to think about. It shouldn't be surprising that people were contemplating crazy solutions to crazy problems.
  - Tomte 11y ago

sgdesign 11y ago

A currency-independent parallel banking system that uses smartphone apps sounds like a very cool thing, actually. It almost makes me wish that we had a chance to see it implemented.

BenjiBG 11y ago

This is how absolutistic ruling starts. Most often from crisis and always with the excuse to do good for the country. I agree to some comments here that they needed a plan B, but you can't overstep your even as prime minister or finance minister given authority. Kim Jong-un states that he's just protecting his people from the evil rest of the world.

asgard1024 11y ago

It's sad to see them (Varoufakis/Tsipras) being crucified for this. Ironically, it was the Eurozone "leadership" that used threat of Grexit in negotiations, by not accepting any compromise. It only shows they have the "punish someone" mentality, at the cost of Eurozone's future. I guess that's politics, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Couple days ago, Tsipras was criticized for not having plan B.

tptacek 11y ago
It's not that they had a Plan B, but what that plan was. Their Plan B was essentially a coup, instrumented through the financial system.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  I am genuinely curious - what would be a correct Plan B? I am not sure how could you have a Grexit without it being a coup. Personally, I am not a big fan of central bank independence, as a concept. There is always some dependence, because institutions are staffed and constructed by humans, and I think proclaiming independence is a bit muddy in democracy. If Tsipras took control over Greek Central Bank, it would still have greater democratic legitimacy than the control Eurozone leaders have over ECB (the fact they have some I think can be seen from the fact that ECB didn't provide liquidity to Greece before the referendum - really independent CB in a monetary union would have to do that anyway and let the politicians face the consequences). (I am really torn here, because, even though I wish Eurozone to succeed, sadly, the existence of EZ and ECB was not established in a democratic process, as it should.)
  - Tomte 11y ago
    Easy: let parliament vote for Grexit.
    - fwn 11y ago
      That's not practical. The plans would've been leaked and people would've tried to take advantage of it. The idea that a parliamentary decision would have been better than one from the cabinet because the legitimating chain would've been slightly shorter sounds like a rather esoteric reason to judge their actions on. But as opponents this is a great opportunity. They'll get crushed, I guess.

tptacek 11y ago

Here's FT's (much better) reporting: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2a0a1d94-3201-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html#axzz3h3txW2p8 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2a0a1d94-3201-11e5-8873-775ba... (The headline is "Syriza’s covert plot during crisis talks to return to drachma" if you want to Google it because of the registration wall).

dvdgsng 11y ago
mirror at archive.is: https://archive.is/UUioO https://archive.is/UUioO
rurban 11y ago
"Much better" is very questionable in this context. It's a aggressive right-winger view point, which again does everything to denounce Syriza as left-wing radicals and supporters, which is explicitly against Syriza's own point of view. Which is a center-left EU-friendly party, holding up to Keynesian principles. And they call it "plot", where it was a normal grexit plan. It was very similar to the EU troika "plot"/plan for their grexit scenario, throwing them out of the Eurozone. And the Troika actually performed parts of their "evil" plan. Draghi illegally stopped ECB support to blackmail them. Did FT report this as such?
- Zigurd 11y ago
  Indeed one thing I find shocking is the assumption, even among very smart people, that Syriza is too far left. Too left for what? They are reacting as if it were a Soviet-aligned Communist party with a plan to cancel elections. This kind of narrow "crush anything that isn't neoliberal capitalism" paranoia is going to make the the crunch even more painful when disemployment really comes into play.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Well, part of their plan was to raise 10-20bn from Russia to prop up their economy, and the whole plan was extralegal, so I'm not sure that's too far off the mark.
11y ago

nl 11y ago

I wish there was a really good source for analysis on the Greek situation that ignored value judgements of what "should" happen. To me it appears that Varoufakis is the Bobby Fischer of economics at the moment[1]. Of course he had a plan to keep the Greek economy (somewhat) alive if Grexit occurred. It would astonish me if some details of the plan hadn't been leaked to the EU - the Greeks would want them to know about it. Varoufakis's resignation/sacking was beautifully timed to setup the idea that the Greeks would make some concessions, but couldn't be pushed much further. And the purpose of this latest thing isn't to protect Varoufakis against treason charges, it it to drive a bigger wedge between Germany and France before August 20. (As an aside, Varoufakis used to be Valve's staff economist, and he's a published game theorist. He's pretty good a playing slight differences in motivations against each other) [1] http://genius.com/3889915 http://genius.com/3889915

MagnumOpus 11y ago
If this summer's negotiations were a deliberate chess move, they are akin to manoeuvring yourself into a Fool's Mate. Closing all banks for the largest part of a month sinks your economy at a faster pace than any austerity ever could. The country was on the path to recovery since last year but this summer has caused another implosion in economic activity similar to a devaluation - all without getting the eventual side benefits of an actual Grexit.

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

I think the most interesting part was this: The payments would be 'IOUs' based on an experiment by California after the Lehman crisis. Indicating that precedents set in the US are being used for entire economies - pretty interesting.

Lazare 11y ago
Keep in mind, Greece is a lot smaller than California. :)

templl 11y ago

The people orchestraiting the integration of the eurozone want a greek crisis. They need the greek crisis in order to gain political support for the next phase which is fiscal integration. They will generate fear and disorder and then the people would be willing to agree upon the fiscal integration of europe. Varoufakis knows this very well, to quote from the article: "And he (German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble) said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French that which Paris has been resisting: a degree of transfer of budget-making powers from Paris to Brussels." Varoufakis

Tomte 11y ago
If you believe Varoufakis. It may be Schäuble's game plan, I cannot know about it, but telling all about it to Varoufakis? That's akin to James Bond's opponents always disclosing their secret master plan just before they think they're going to kill Bond. Real world doesn't work like that. I simply find it implausible. Why should Schäuble admit to all that openly in a discussion with him? What good would it do? Nothing: if it ever came out (and Varoufakis has constantly been talking to the press), France will be alienated and his alleged goal will be even farther away. It simply does not add up.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  You're making the assumption that Schäuble is a reasonable man, which he's proven amply not to be.
  - Tomte 11y ago
    Character assassination won't make you look any better.
    - Mithaldu 11y ago
      Your point is: The things Varoufakis claims Schäuble said and did would not have been said or done by a reasonable person. To that i am pointing out that Schäuble has in the past said and done many things that were entirely unreasonable, even if some may have been meant well.

throwitup 11y ago

V for Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M