Tag Archives: Politics and Economics

How the IMF and the EU screwed Greece: It’s Official (Title as it appeared on the ABC’s website) https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/lnl_20160810_2220-vindicated-varoufakis.mp3

Athens daily Kathimerini published a letter signed by 23 ‘US-educated Greeks’ sent to the University of Texas’ President denouncing James K. Galbraith (a long-standing professor there) for having helped me design a “monetary cum military coup d’etat”.  At least that was their description of my Plan X – a preliminary contingency plan to counter the European Central Bank’s Plan Z with which Greece is being threatened continually since 2012 – see the Financial Times report here. Once more,...

ATHENS – Politics in the advanced economies of the West is in the throes of a political shakeup unseen since the 1930s. The Great Deflation now gripping both sides of the Atlantic is reviving political forces that had lain dormant since the end of World War II. Passion is returning to politics, but not in the manner many of us had hoped it would. The right has become animated by an anti-establishment fervor that was, until recently, the preserve of the left. In the United States, Donald...

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You have read about the most recent IMF confession over its immolation of Greece. The question is: Does it signal a change in policies? Do not hold your breath! Recent history is pointing to a repetition of the crime-against-logic first committed in 2012 – an IMF tactic of confessing to the sin in order to repeat it with impunity! Back in June 2015, Olivier Blanchard, the then IMF Chief Economist, wrote an article that seemed reasonable: both sides (the troika and Athens) must make...

TIME FOR RESIGNATIONS AT THE IMF, THE ECB & THE COMMISSION TIME FOR AN APOLOGY TO THE PEOPLE OF GREECE TIME  FOR A POLICY U-TURN, BEGINNING WITH IMMEDIATE DEBT RELIEF, THE END OF AUSTERITY & THE CESSATION OF FIRE SALES TIME FOR THE RESTORATION OF GREEK DEMOCRACY This week began with a debate in Greek Parliament called by the Official Opposition (the troika’s main, but not only, domestic cheerleaders) for the purposes of, eventually, indicting me for daring to counter the...

The architecture of the European Union institutions is flawed. Its leaders seem to deny the ineffectiveness of the response given to the financial and economic crisis as we see inequality and extremism on the rise. The European Union will be unprepared for the next crisis unless it profoundly reforms its governance and enhances democracy. Today in Europe we see it being bashed, mistrusted, and loaded with negative emotional charges. Why? What do you think are the big disintegration...

For the German language version, as published in Die Zeit on 18 July 2016, click here. For the English version (as I wrote it originally)… The euro has failed, both as an economic and a political project. Moreover, its failure is tearing the European Union apart. Can Europe respond creatively to stop this deconstruction? By Yanis Varoufakis Brexit would not have happened if the Eurozone had not failed so spectacularly. Its impact on the EU’s future will hinge on whether the euro’s...

Click here or… Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls himself a libertarian Marxist Keynesian — or “completely confused,” as he jokes. So it was hard to predict how he would react to Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, a more traditional proponent of free markets. The two economists spoke with TED’s European director Bruno Giussani ahead of December’s TEDGlobal conference in Geneva, where they argued that during these uncertain economic times we should question ideologies,...

Yanis Varoufakis on the consequences of Brexit – and why homelessness in Greece is set to rapidly escalate Click here for The Big Issue sire or… In the white heat of Greek recession, the rise of anti-austerity party Syriza and threat of Grexit from the EU marked the emergence on to the international stage of a new principal player. Rock star economist Yanis Varoufakis cut a suave figure with his leather jacket, chiselled looks and intelligent, eloquent dissection of EU fiscal policy...