Tag Archives: Politics and Economics

[embedded content] We speak with former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis about the rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party in his country and how their policies “have infiltrated the mainstream” in European politics, including anti-immigrant measures similar to those proposed by Trump. Varoufakis says Trump’s vow to crack down on immigration after the attack in New York City will only...

[embedded content] President Trump and House Republicans have unveiled their long-promised proposal to reform America’s tax code, with Trump calling it a “big, beautiful Christmas present” for the American people. Critics say the gift is a tax cut for the richest Americans. We discuss the proposal with economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who argues, “It’s an...

Yanis Varoufakis is telling me about the birth of his daughter, Xenia. “What I felt was an immense weight of responsibility,” he says. “Absolutely blind love and the sense of focusing on one individual.” But the experience didn’t make him feel like a different person. “It didn’t change my internal constitution or the way I looked at the world.” He was in an odd situation. Xenia was born in Australia....

“It is something that people find hard to fathom, but in 1980, Greece had the lowest level of debt in Europe. We were save, save, save, like the Chinese are today. Financialization, which is a global phenomenon, hit Greece around then. Suddenly, this culture of parsimony evaporated.” AS TOLD TO ASH CARTER, NOV 2, 2017  Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and author of Adults in the Room,...

Not many authors write a book in nine days, and fewer still are likely to announce it in the prologue. Yanis Varoufakis has no qualms about doing so in this brief history of capitalism, structured around the device of talking to his daughter, Xenia, not long a teenager. It was first published a few years ago, when she was even younger, and has been updated for British readers following a further week’s writing....

ATHENS – Western capitalism has few sacred cows left. It is time to question one of them: the independence of central banks from elected governments. The rationale for entrusting monetary policy fully to central banks is well understood: politicians, overly tempted during the electoral cycle to create more money, pose a threat to economic stability. While progressives have always protested that central banks can...

In this BBC World at One program dedicated to the Crash of 2007-8, I try, in the space of two and a half minutes, to explain why those momentous events, ten years ago, changed the world in a manner that it no longer makes sense in terms common prior to 2007. Of why I claim that 2007/8 was to capitalism what 1991 was to socialism...

A few days ago, I received a letter from Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi that works like a punch-in-the-stomach type of wake up call addressed to all Europeans. To crown its tough message, Bifo concludes that his conscience cannot fathom being a European any longer, given Europe’s daily crimes against logic and humanity. Thus, Bifo concludes, he is compelled also to resign from DiEM25’s Advisory Panel. You can read his...

ATHENS — The recent elections in France and Britain have confirmed the political establishment’s simultaneous vulnerability and vigor in the face of a nationalist insurgency. This contradiction is the motif of the moment — personified by the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, whose résumé made him a darling of the elites but who rode a wave of anti-establishment enthusiasm to power. A similar paradox is...

Reading Varoufakis: Frustrated Strategist of Greek Financial Deterrence (click here for the original site) by Adam Tooze  Adam Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute. He is currently at work on a history of the global financial crisis 2008-2018, which will appear in time for the anniversary in September 2018. Adults in the...