Month: October 2011
CDS buyers, feminists and Marx: Odd bedfellows in the era of the euro crisis
, 29/10/2011
“Here is our offer: Accept a 50% haircut on your Greek bonds. If you choose not to consent, and it is your prerogative not to, we shall give the green light to Greece to declare a 100% default.” This was in essence the deal that Mr Dallara accepted in the wee hours of the morning on […]
A leveraged EFSF or an ECB-brokered debt conversion? Europe's recent scheme for resolving the crisis versus our Modest Proposal
, 29/10/2011
In my recent ABC TV interview I suggested that the latest euro agreement (announced on 27th October 2011) was a triumph of Orwellian double-speak. They created discord and they called it agreement. In this post I want to unpick a crucial repercussion of this latest piece of euro-fraud.
Europe's newest Orwellian moment: On ABC TV's Lateline discussing the latest plan to save the euro
, 28/10/2011
The ABC’s Lateline (Australia’s flagship news and current affairs evening tv program) afforded me the opportunity to delve into the details (or lack thereof) of the latest European effort to combat the euro crisis. For the transcript and video (kindly provided by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation)…
Another emblematic EU non-event: A first reaction to the latest EU 'agreement'
, 27/10/2011
With the din of the debate on what the new EU anti-Crisis ‘agreement’ means in our ears, and after a long night of anxious observation of our leaders’ deliberations, it is terribly easy to lose sight of the only truth about this new twist in the euro crisis saga: There has been no agreement to […]
Fixing Europe's Impossible Algebra
, 24/10/2011
In simple arithmetic terms, European leaders have been struggling to patch up a €4 trillion gap (€1 trillion of potential bank re-capitalisations plus €3 trillion of stressed sovereign debt) by stretching a €250 billion patch (the EFSF’s remaining funds). In algebraic terms, they are bamboozled by the task of solving a system of two equations […]
Long radio interview on all aspects of the euro/Greek/global crisis: KVRX 91.7fm, Austin, Texas
, 23/10/2011
Click here to download the mp3.
"Can't Pay, won't pay!" From Dario Fo's play to our contemporary Greek dystopia
, 22/10/2011
El Pais asked me to write a piece on the ‘fiscal disobedience’ movement that seems to be shaping up in Greece. Here is what I wrote. (I shall post the Spanish version, off El Pais’ site, when available):
Europe needs a circuit breaker: Interviewed by ABC TV's The 7.30 Report
, 21/10/2011
Click here for the ABC’s site, where you can find the video or just read the ABC’s own transcript below:
The Snowflake That Started an Avalanche: Three recent interviews
, 20/10/2011
With the eyes of a stunned world trained, yet again on Greece, the international media have returned to Athens. I keep suggesting to them that they are wasting their time. That the real game is happening elsewhere – in the corridors of the French and German banks, in the meetings between German officials and the […]
Los Angeles Review of Books: On Yanis Varoufakis’s new theory of the global financial crisis, by Brian Collins
, 18/10/2011
Brian Collins honoured us (myself and my co-authors Joseph Halevi and Nicholas Theocarakis) with a long, extremely kind review which he just published in the Los Angeles Review of Books: Yanis Varoufakis, Joseph Halevi, and Nicholas Theocarakis, Modern Political Economics: Making Sense of the Post-2008 World, Routledge, July 2011. 552 pp. Yanis Varoufakis, The Global Minotaur: America, The […]
Soros tries to snatch hope from the jaws of despair
, 17/10/2011
George Soros has been saying much that is right about Europe for at least the past year. (I have had the opportunity to comment on his musing, mostly approvingly, on a number of different occasions – see for example here and here). His latest piece in the FT (A route-map through the eurozone minefield) is […]
A grim assessment of Europe's Social Democratic Parties: video
, 14/10/2011
Interview (Part 4) that I gave a few weeks ago to the Scottish branch of Unite – the union. A big thank you to Peter Welsh and Andrew Brady. Below I copy their description of this interview: “Unite Scotland’s fourth and final instalment in the Varoufakis series puts focus on the failings of social democratic […]
The Wicked Game
, 11/10/2011
How Greece is being beaten into a pulp to force Europe’s banks to accept capital while keeping Italy et al in awe.
It's a banking crisis…
, 11/10/2011
Video courtesy of Koen Aarts. Taped just after my University of Groningen presentation on 6th October 2011/
A Plan for Europe: Decent_Europe_
, 10/10/2011
This afternoon (Athens time) I shall be appearing at the TEDx Academy (Athens) to deliver my fifteen minutes worth of ideas about how to transform Europe. Here is what I plan to say:
The Modest Proposal travels to the Netherlands: Groningen on Thursday 6th October and Amsterdam on Friday 7th October
, 05/10/2011
If you happen to be in the Netherlands today and tomorrow (Thu 6/10 and Fri 7/10) and wish to participate in a debate on the Modest Proposal, this is your chance. Come along. The adjacent poster concerns the Groningen event. Click here for an interesting introduction to this event. For the Amsterdam debate-presentation that follows […]
Europe’s Greek Moment: My interview with TrumanFactor – in English and in Spanish
, 02/10/2011
TrumanFactor interviewed me on Greece, Europe and the Modest Proposal. Click here for the english version and here for the spanish translation.
Cancellation: Regretfully, UADPhilEcon is forced to announce that, due to contractual obligations, tomorrow's talk by James K. Galbraith is cancelled
, 02/10/2011
Cancellation: Regretfully, UADPhilEcon is forced to announce that, due to contractual obligations, tomorrow’s (Monday 3rd October) talk by James K. Galbraith is cancelled. James’ contract with a commercial organisation did not, as it turned out, permit him to deliver this lecture. Hopefully, when and if UADPhilEcon recovers its funding, we shall be in a position […]
How it all started in Greece and how it will spread to France; unless Europe changes course
, 01/10/2011
Interviewed in the London office of UNITE (the trades union):