Summary:
Frmr Greece finance minister Yanis Varoufakis explains Paul Volcker’s report to Kissinger; “Paul Volcker as a young man worked for Henry Kissinger before Kissinger became the foreign minister, Secretary of State for the United States (when he was still National Security Advisor0. Volcker was working for him. Kissinger asked Volcker, who was a young banker, ...
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Frmr Greece finance minister Yanis Varoufakis explains Paul Volcker’s report to Kissinger;
“Paul Volcker as a young man worked for Henry Kissinger before Kissinger became the foreign minister, Secretary of State for the United States (when he was still National Security Advisor0. Volcker was working for him. Kissinger asked Volcker, who was a young banker, to come up with an idea as to how could American hegemony be expanded when the deficit is increasing. Volcker wrote a three page report, which actually I have read. It was very difficult to get. You could not find it anywhere, even on the internet. I have it in a manuscript form and it was given to me by a friend, an American, some time ago. Which is perhaps the most remarkable statement of the 20th century. Well, I am exaggerating, but you know what I mean.
In it, he said, well, if we can’t remain hegemonic – that was the word he used – no, that is not a left wing text, Volcker. If we can’t remain hegemonic by – “handling” was the word he used – our surpluses, we should do it by handling other people’s surpluses. And that’s the Global Minotaur. Effectively what America did was this: We don’t have a surplus anymore and so we can’t recycle it. But we can recycle everybody else’s surpluses and retain our hegemonic position through that. And it is the very first time in human economic history or history in general that an empire is expanding its realm and its power and its strength and vitality by expanding its deficits. Usually when an empire has a deficit, it is the beginning of its decline. Not in the case of the United States. […] ”
Video excerpted from: Yanis Varoufakis: The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy [SkriptaTV]
An accidental economist Let me begin with a confession: I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist. But let’s take things one at a time.
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