Friday, March 20, 2015

Yanis Varoufakis — Of Greeks and Germans: Re-imagining our shared future


Yanis blogs again. Short and to the point.

Message: Let's all act like grownups and stop fighting over our toys.

Two phrases are operative, one which he doesn't use explicitly, namely, "predatory lending," and one which he does, "shared prosperity."

Yanis Varoufakis
Of Greeks and Germans: Re-imagining our shared future

9 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Link is not enabled.

In the meantime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jr9hPbYmBo

Tom Hickey said...

Thanks. Bob. Fixed

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/03/20/of-greeks-and-germans-re-imagining-our-shared-future/

Peter Pan said...

In practical terms, the 20th February Eurogroup agreement offers an excellent opportunity to move forward. Let us implement it immediately, as our leaders have urged in yesterday’s informal Brussels meeting.

Well then, come up with reforms acceptable to the Troika ASAP, and begin implementing them. Anything less would be seen as stalling on the part of the Greek government.

Message is clear: Pay your debts or GTFO.

Dan Lynch said...

Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"

Warren Buffet: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Ralph Musgrave said...

Beware of Greeks bearing "shared future" proposals.

Scroungers are always keen to "share their future" with the more successful. If I took to begging, I'd probably offer to "share my future" with Warren Buffet (out of the kindness of my heart).

Matt Franko said...

YV: "How many of Europe’s taxpayers, who footed these loans,"

He doesn't get it....

Matt Franko said...

So he says here:

"In 2010 Greece owed not one euro to German taxpayers. We had no right to borrow from them, or from other European taxpayers, while our public debt was unsustainable. Period!"

That their debt is unsustainable...

Then he says it more or less again here:

"making it impossible to repay private and public debts,"

Their debt is impossible...

Then he contradicts himself here:

"we need to focus on our joint interest: On how to grow and to reform Greece rapidly, so that the Greek state can best repay debts it should never have taken on"

So first he says it was unsustainable then he says it was impossible, then he says its somehow neither and they can be sustained and possible....????

Well I'm confused and I'm sure many others are too...

I dont see how he can do his job here and not go into the NIA/SB context for the citizens ... it is not that complicated it is simple arithmetic the public can handle it...

Malmo's Ghost said...

Matt,

Read down thread what Costas Lapavitsas has to say about YV. It isn't particularly flattering, especially given YV's association with PASOK's George Papandreou.

Matt Franko said...

Mal i'd assume if you looked into it he has friends and relatives at the IMF and institutions, ECB, etc...

Even so who cares you dont have to get rid of the current institutional arrangements they just have to regulate the system differently..

right now they are all focused on the "G-T" term via the NIA for Greece they can just develop a better understanding of the dependent relationships of this "G-T" variable within the context of the complete "Eurozone" and regulate the outcomes via trade controls or "capital controls" so-called if you like... even within the current institutional structure with the ECB/IMF etc... nobody even there has to lose a job if they run it differently..

Look at the US mortgage GSEs they got bought out by the US govt and nobody there lost their jobs and they are doing over 90% of US mortgages these days its working BETTER than before imo...

So there are numerous options over there.... but first you have to address this simplistic child-like obsession with the "G-T" of Greece by the surplus nations imo...

It will take some demonstration of arithmetic... I dont think it is over most people's heads...

rsp,