Debt Crises and the Future of the World Economy: Public Lecture at Seattle's Town Hall, 20th November 2012, 19.30

Financialization, ineffectual bank regulation, greed, and globalization were not the root causes of the global economic crisis, says economist Yanis Varoufakis; rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise that can be traced from the Great Crash of 1929 to the 1970s: the time when a “Global Minotaur” was born. Just as ancient Athenians maintained a steady flow of tributes to that Cretan beast, so the world began sending incredible amounts of capital to America and Wall Street, making the Global Minotaur the engine that pulled the world economy from the early 1980s to 2008.  The result, says Varoufakis, was a system as unsustainable as it was imbalanced, and not only in (present-day) Greece and other European economies making headlines today. When it buckled under its hubris, it delivered a world economy that could not regain its poise.

• Presented as part of the Town Hall Civics series with Elliott Bay Book Company.
• Series supported by The Boeing Company, the RealNetworks Foundation, and the True/Brown Foundation.

Tickets are $5 at www.townhallseattle.org or 888/377-4510 and at the door beginning at 6:30 pm. Town Hall members receive priority seating. Downstairs at Town Hall; enter on Seneca Street.