As you grow up and experience more of the ups and downs of the economy, you will notice a piece of mindbending hypocrisy: during the good times, bankers, entrepreneurs—rich people in general—tend to be against government. They criticize it as a “brake on development,” a “parasite” feeding on the private sector through taxation, an “enemy of freedom and entrepreneurship.” The cleverer among them even go so far as...
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How do we choose between what is fair and just, and what our debtors demand of us? Yanis Varoufakis was put in such a dilemma in 2015 when he became the finance minister of Greece. In this rousing book, he charts the absurdities that underpin calls for austerity, as well as his own battles with a bureaucracy bent on ignoring the human cost of its every action. Passionately outspoken and tuned to the voices of the...
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Three years ago, today, the people of Greece staged a rebellion against their debt bondage. Though this rebellion was overthrown from within almost immediately, it remains a remarkable testimony to the power of a people to say No to the oligarchy, to wrestle control of the narrative of their circumstances from the inanely authoritarian elites, and to overcome the fear which a tiny minority uses to take the demos...
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Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Chris found this above, (from a 2016 post) anthropologist Jennifer Esperanza got annoyed at how her field’s textbooks always had exotic cover images, when anthropology is really the study of all humanity. “‘Why can’t there be images of, for example, a group of white American women eating salads, on the cover?,’ she asked.” Dori Tunstall and Julie Hill took up the challenge of putting white people on the covers of anthro...
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To read one excellent review of one’s book is a joy. To read an engaging and deeply thoughtful review of different categories of reviews of one’s book is a rare privilege. Normally, I should have left matters there, enjoying the diversity of opinion that Adults in the Room engendered. But this is not an academic book whose work is done. Its subject-matter concerns really suffering people and a continent – Europe...
Read More »Director of Research Jan Kregel is one of the editors and contributors for a new collection of essays devoted to the work of Alessandro Roncaglia: Classical Economics Today: Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia is a collection of essays that pays tribute to Alessandro Roncaglia whose research is based on Schumpeter’s dictum that good economics must encompass history, economic theory and statistics, and therefore does not generally take the form of elegant formal models that are...
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El libro de memorias de Yanis Varoufakis sobre sus poco más de cinco meses como ministro de Finanzas griego, ‘Comportarse como adultos. Mi batalla contra el establishment europeo‘, (Deusto) es, probablemente, el libro del año. Y lo es por muchas razones: su narración de las maratonianas reuniones del Eurogrupo sobre la posible reestructuración de la deuda griega y los paquetes de ayuda constituye una mirada...
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« Nous allons, en même temps que le possesseur d’argent et le possesseur de force de travail, quitter cette sphère bruyante où tout se passe à la surface et aux regards de tous, pour les suivre tous deux dans le laboratoire secret de la production, sur le seuil duquel il est écrit : no admittance except on business. » – Marx, Le Capital Que l’homme que l’on a présenté comme un dangereux trublion...
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Schon als Minister legte er Wert auf große Gesten. Yanis Varoufakis bleibt sich auch in diesem Buch treu. Νein, die ganze Geschichte der Auseinandersetzung um die Griechenland-Hilfe im ersten Halbjahr 2015 ist das nicht, was Yanis Varoufakis, der erste Finanzminister der Regierung von Alexis Tsipras in diesem umfangreichen Memoirenwerk bietet. Es ist eine Abfolge von Gesprächen, zum Teil mit Wortlaut-Zitaten aus...
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“Europa es exactamente lo opuesto a democracia”, asegura el ex ministro griego de Finanzas y cofundador de DIEM25, que ajusta cuentas con los protagonistas de la crisis del euro en “Comportarse como adultos“ “El Gobierno español actuó firmemente en Bruselas contra los intereses de la inmensa mayoría de los españoles” “El bitcoin es una espléndida burbuja y nunca podrá operar provechosamente como moneda” El ex...
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Heterodox
