Tag Archives: Politics and Economics

Click here or… FORMER GREEK MINISTER for Finance Yanis Varoufakis has said that fears that Ireland may end up as “collateral damage” in negotiations between London and Brussels are “well-founded”. Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, the economist said if Britain chooses to leave the capital union, Ireland would not be negotiating with London over the status of the border: ”there will be negotiations between London and Brussels on this”. This comes as Gerry Adams said that Brexit could destroy...

With Srećko Horvat, Elif Shafak, Yanis Varoufakis & Owen Jones A troubled Britain is on its way out of a troubled European Union. Disintegration and xenophobia are in the air. The government in London is in disarray. But so is every other government in Europe, not to mention the European Commission whose authority is tending increasingly towards zero. The only forces to be gathering strength everywhere are those of what might be called a Nationalist International, spreading their...

In recent years we have seen far more of the workings behind the curtain of neoliberalism than we ever have before. This is in part, I believe, due to the work of Yanis Varoufakis. A Greek economist educated in Britain, Varoufakis first made headlines for his integral role as Finance Minister for the Syriza government of Greece between January and September 2015. In February 2016, with the support of progressive leaders, academics, artists and activists across Europe, he initiated the...

The book will be launched at 19.00 on 12th December 2016 at Parnassos Hall, Plateia Karitsi 8. Speakers include Nicholas Theocarakis (University of Athens), Thanos Mikroutsikos (Composer) and Kostas Vaxevanis (Journalist and publisher). Video messages by Noam Chomsky, James K. Galbraith, Jeff Sachs and Slavoj Zizek. (Please note that this event will be conducted in Greek)

On 4th December 2016 I delivered the keynote at the RiskMinds International risk management conference in Amsterdam. A summary of my talk, compiled by the organisers, follows. What’s worse? Being a finance minister of a bankrupt state, or a risk manager in this environment? Tuesday morning’s guest speaker at RiskMinds in Amsterdam, former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis, wasn’t sure. “We seem to be having a perfect storm,” he began. “A political class which is very rapidly...

[embedded content] Click here for an 8 minute version, recorded at a later Cambridge Union event

[embedded content] This speech was part of a Cambridge Union debate on ‘This House Has Lost Confidence in Austerity’. See below for the video of the whole debate. [embedded content]

Yanis Varoufakis, Ralph Nader, Tim Barker, Donna Murch and Simon Schama, interviewed by Christopher Lydon. https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/varoufakis-nader-et-al-on-trump-normalizethis-open-source-radio.mp3 Normalize This! Last week, the election of Donald J. Trump came as a thunderclap. This week, the echoes are still ringing in the ears of the American polity. Reports of the demise of the Republican party turned out to be greatly exaggerated. And now it’s the...

I had no doubt Donald Trump would win, just like I had no doubt Brexit would happen, so maybe I’m not as shell-shocked as you,” says Yanis Varoufakis. The former Greek finance minister is speaking to me several days after the Republican candidate’s historic victory. He doesn’t sound smug about being so prescient, more resigned, deflated, defeated. The left has been here before. Over the course of an hour-long conversation, Varoufakis soothed my caffeine-jangled nerves with the thought...

Why is America still important? Below I copy the answer I gave in 2011 in the last chapter of The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the World Economy. (For those not familiar with the economic meaning of my Minotaur allegory, read this.) Today, as the Trump Presidency looms, I fear that that conclusion is even more pertinent…  [Excerpt from Chapter 9] The omens are not good. Never before have so many powerful people understood so little about what the world economy needs...