Year: 2012
Austerity-stricken Europe within a slowing global economy
, 24/09/2012
Click here for Mariana Mazuccato’s Bloomberg interview on the trouble with Europe’s austerian turn. And here for an article in Fund Strategy on the Great Global Slowdown (featuring the Global Minotaur).
Two questions for Mr Mario Monti
, 23/09/2012
A major network asked me to suggest two questions that might be put to Mr Mario Monti, Italy’s Prime Minister. Here are the ones I came up with. What do you think his answers will be? Question 1: Italy and the ECB’s OMT program: Will it help you in the medium run? Context: In the […]
Why is the Global Crisis so persistent? Q&A with Ben Hunt (of Fund Strategy) on the themes of the Global Minotaur
, 21/09/2012
Ben Hunt, of FUND STRATEGY, posed eight poignant questions to me concerning the continuing Global Crisis and touching upon various themes from my Global Minotaur. Here is a taste of the soon to be published interview: 1. What is your understanding of what has been driving the growth in the world economy (the “engine of […]
Europe’s Modern Titanomachy: How Europe’s future is being shaped by large battles on seemingly small matters (Part C)
, 17/09/2012
In this three part series (click here for Part A and here for Part B), I have cast a critical gaze upon recent developments which have caused a degree of jubilation in a continent that has not had any ‘good news’, regarding its integrity and future direction, for a while. Part A offered an overview […]
Europe’s Modern Titanomachy: How Europe’s future is being shaped by large battles on seemingly small matters (Part B)
, 13/09/2012
PART B – Mr Draghi’s nod to Euro-loyalists On 8th August 2012 the President of the ECB acknowledged that the Eurozone was at an advanced process of disintegration and, in the same breath, promised to do what it takes to put a stop to it. On September 6th came his OMT announcement that many commentators […]
Europe’s Modern Titanomachy: How Europe’s future is being shaped by large battles on seemingly small matters
, 12/09/2012
PART A – In the balance They sound technical and minor when projected against the great scheme of Europe’s extraordinarily rich history. Will there be conditionality attached to the ECB’s bond purchases? Will the bonds that it purchases be treated on a pari passu basis in relation to bonds held by private institutions? Will the […]
An Athenian perspective on the US Presidential Election: CNN Online
, 12/09/2012
Some weeks ago, CNN contacted me to request a piece on how the US Presidential Election resonates in the streets of Athens today. Immediately, a hazy image came to me of a warm afternoon when I was walking with my mother outside the Panathinaikon Stadium, in central Athens. I was seven years old then but […]
The Emperor Has No Clothes : Review of three books on the state of economics
, 06/09/2012
Michael Yates has written a long review of three books (published in Monthly Review) on the state of economic theory that readers of this blog may be interested in. They are: Yanis Varoufakis, Joseph Halevi, and Nicholas J. Theocarakis, Modern Political Economics: Making Sense of the Post-2008 World (New York: Routledge, 2011), 536 pages, $165.00, hardcover, $65.00, […]
On BSkyB commenting on the troika's latest assault on Greek labour
, 05/09/2012
You may have seen the leaked letter (see below for its contents and also read the Guardian’s report on the matter), authored by the troika and sent to the hapless Quisling-like Greek government. In this interview I was given a brief ‘window’ of an opportunity to discuss its contents and general ‘philosophy’.
While awaiting Mr Draghi’s 6th September statement, a reminder: “It is the German banks, stupid!”
, 04/09/2012
In April 2011 I wrote a piece, entitled “It is the German banks stupid” in which I claimed that the primary reason why Europe was allowing a preventable debt crisis to engulf the Periphery had to do with the sorry state of the German banks and with the determination of the German government to do […]
In Praise of Public Investment: On the importance of Mariana Mazzucato’s article in The Guardian
, 03/09/2012
Two are the greatest untruths that have inflicted major damage upon our understanding of how social economies work; and, by extension, upon our societies. First, there is the pseudo-‘law’ of ‘crowding out’; i.e. the illusory belief that when public investment increases private investment suffers. Secondly, there is a widespread misconception that, under capitalism, value is […]
Radio Exarcheia: A collaborative art project, opening this week in Melbourne, Australia
, 02/09/2012
Just received from Tom Nicholson, an excellent Melbourne-based artist, the following brief on a collaborative art project that touches upon the Greek economic crisis in a manner that acts as an apt reminder of the unique capacity that art has to cast the worst aspects of the human condition in fresh and insightful light. The […]
The Global Minotaur just published in Italian
, 29/08/2012
The Global Minotaur has just been published in Italian under the title Il Minotauro Globale: L’America, le vere origini della crisi e il futuro dell’economia globale. Thanks to my Italian publisher for this opportunity to reach a wider audience in yet another proud nation that is continuing, with increasing intensity, to feel the repercussions of the […]
The three conditions for the ECB to cap spreads successfully: and why they will not be met
, 23/08/2012
Adam Smith believed that it was part of human nature to truck, barter and exchange. I am not so sure that he is quite right. What I do observe, however, is that it is in the ‘nature’ of the ECB Council to dither, dawdle and evade.
On BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme discussing the Greek government’s request for a two year extension to Bailout Mk2
, 22/08/2012
Click here for the interview
A warning from the past: N. Kaldor on the Eurozone
, 20/08/2012
They say that bright minds see well into the future, unimpaired by models, simulations and computational statistics. As evidence of this, consider the following lines from 1971. They was written by Nicholas Kaldor, a highly esteemed Cambridge economist who passed away in the mid-1980s. Discussing the prospect of a United States of Europe, which he […]
Latest Q&A on our Modest Proposal:
, 19/08/2012
Mindful Money has just published an interview in which I answer three of their questions on the Modest Proposal and its differences from the plan to bolster the Eurozone by granting a banking licence to the EFSF-ESM. Click here for the complete article or read on for the barebones Q&A…
What Mr Draghi should be aiming at: Or how to move from Ponzi Austerity to Rational Crisis Management by a stepwise implementation of the Modest Proposal
, 17/08/2012
Ponzi growth happens when unsustainable capital flows, wilfully predicated upon funding schemes that Reason knows to be fraudulent, give rise to large spurts of economic activity. Ponzi austerity, in contrast, is what happens when unsustainable spending cuts, wilfully predicated upon funding schemes that Reason knows to be fraudulent, cause significant drops in economic activity. (Click […]
Punishment or Aid? Holland’s TROUW newspaper sets up a debate between myself and Hans Werner Sinn
, 17/08/2012
You may recall the mental experiment that I suggested for working out the true, underlying mood towards Greece (and the rest of the Periphery). Now TROUW has published that piece, in translation of course, and has juxtaposed against Hans Werner Sinn’s take (which comes as close to confirming, in my biased eyes, the point I […]
A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Euro Crisis: an abridged version as published by the Financial Times On Line
, 17/08/2012
by Yanis Varoufakis[1] and Stuart Holland[2] (click here for the full version of our Modest Proposal) The Eurozone is disintegrating under the weight of three intertwined crises unfolding in the realms of banking, public debt and under-investment & internal imbalances. For two years each and every response by Europe’s leadership to the crisis proved consistently underwhelming. The [...]Convertibility Risk: Acknowledged but not addressed
, 06/08/2012
Further to my previous post on Mr Draghi’s recent undermining of the Office of ECB President, Gavyn Davies of the FT penned the following line: “It is risky for a central banker to acknowledge that the payments system on which the currency stands may not be fully credible. Mr Draghi could simply have repeated the old […]
The week when Mr Draghi greatly diminished the office of ECB President and sacrificed the fiscal-monetary policy distinction
, 03/08/2012
First came the impressive declarations: The ECB will do whatever is necessary to ensure that those who go short on the euro, who bet on its disintegration, will lose. “And, believe me”, he added “it will be enough”. He also, rather significantly, uttered the term ‘convertibility risk’ (code-words for the risk that funds kept in […]