Essays
Greek and European prospects for 2015 – Interview in L’Antidiplomatico
, 01/01/2015
Interviewed by Alessandro Bianchi on Greece and Europe in the run up to the Greek general election of 25th January 2015 Click here for the L’Antidiplomatico site or, for the English original,…
The euro’s first inkling – a piece in lieu of Best Wishes for 2015
, 26/12/2014
As 2015 is approaching, seemingly pregnant with crucial challenges for Europe, the euro and all those who have to live with it, I could not think of a better seasonal offering for readers of this blog than a suitable extract from my next book. I chose a piece that narrates, and interprets, the story of […]
Interviewed by Thomas Fazi for ONEURO: Greece, the EUROZONE and the prospects of a SYRIZA government
, 15/12/2014
Thomas Fazi has just interviewed me for ONEURO on Greece and the Eurozone two months before a possible Greek election. To read the interview as published in Italian click here. For the Q&A in its English original…
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century from a Marxist Perspective – audio
, 14/12/2014
On 6th December, I was kindly invited by the editorial board of Science & Society (the oldest continuously published journal of Marxist scholarship worldwide) to deliver a keynote to its Editorial Board’s Annual Meeting. My talk was based on a recent critical review of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century which can be read here. To listen […]
How the US rolls (post-Global Minotaur) – by SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
, 13/12/2014
In this article, aptly subtitled It’s lonely being the global policeman, Slavoj evokes a parallelism between the age of extremes that began as the British Empire was losing its grip with the present moment in history. Now that the Global Minotaur (quoting my book) is mortally wounded, “…the American century is over and we are witnessing […]
Ten questions on Greece & SYRIZA, with ten answers – Q&A with Jorge N. Rodrigues
, 11/12/2014
(For the Portuguese language version of this interview, click here. Otherwise read on…)
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Greece and the rise of SYRIZA – from THE TELEGRAPH
, 11/12/2014
In this powerful, balanced article, published today in conservative UK daily THE TELEGRAPH, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard makes important points on Greece and a prospective SYRIZA administration: Events have rudely exposed the illusion that the Greek people will submit quietly to a decade of colonial treatment and debt servitude… Greece was sacrificed to buy time for the alliance, […]
Burst Greek Bubbles, Spooked Fund Managers: A cause for restrained celebration
, 07/12/2014
The international press is replete with reports of how London-based fund managers were spooked when they heard of SYRIZA’s views on the nature of Greece’s conundrum and on the party’s intention to work towards a debt restructure and a re-orientation of social and economic policies toward social cohesion and economic growth. Here is my reply…
Bloomberg’s Clive Crook on our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds
, 05/12/2014
In an article entitled “ECB should fire up its helicopters“, Clive Crook comments positively on this proposal for QE by the ECB taking the form of massive purchases of EIB bonds. The article also surveys other important ideas that would, if the political will were to be found, be helpful in the fight against misanthropic, unnecessary, stagnation. […]
Discussing Thomas Piketty's inequality treatise with Andrew Mazzone – video
, 03/12/2014
Prompted by this critical review article of Professor Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the 21st Century, which I recently published in Real World Economics Review, Andrew Mazzone (of the Henry George School Social Science) kindly interviewed me on the subject of inequality and Professor Piketty’s book.
A Program for Greece? A response to Christian Odendahl
, 03/12/2014
As a general election is looming larger on the Greek horizon, commentary on a prospective SYRIZA administration is becoming more frequent. In this piece Christian Odendahl proposes ‘A Program for Greece’. The ‘Program’ is sympathetic to the view that Greece was manhandled by a bailout loan that gave it little chance of recovery and makes several […]
Revisiting the Juncker Recovery Proposals – guest post by Stuart Holland
, 01/12/2014
Regular readers need no introduction to Stuart Holland; co-author of The Modest Proposal, former British MP and aid to Jacques Delors, responsible for starting the conversation about the Eurozone’s need for eurobonds (in… 1993), creator of the European Investment Fund and a staunch advocate of the need to turn the European Investment Bank into the […]
Public Debt: How the classical economists looked upon it (wonkish) – Guest article by Nicholas Theocarakis
, 28/11/2014
With so much talk about public debt, the so-called debt crisis etc., it is perhaps time to take a close look at the history of the concept; of how public debt was born, on the evolution of its nature and, even more poignantly, of the manner in which economists have interpreted and evaluated its purpose […]
Klaus Kastner replies – On the Versailles Treaty parallels
, 19/11/2014
Continuing the discussion we began on modern parallels to the Versailles Treaty (the Greek Bailout, as I claimed here, or Maastricht, as Klaus Kastner juxtaposed here – see also my rejoinder here), Klaus Kastner takes stock with this, latest, missive.
MODERN MONEY: AESTHETICS AFTER THE GOLD STANDARD (video), UC Berkeley, 7th Nov. 2014
, 18/11/2014
Click the image above to watch a 60′ keynote on Money, and its Aesthetics, after the Gold Standard, following by a presentation by Danae Stratou of her remarkable installation ‘It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes’ – click here for a full description (and pictures and video) of that work.
Was Maastricht another Versailles for the German nation? A reply to Klaus Kastner
, 16/11/2014
Klaus Kastner suggests that Germans cannot sympathise with my analogy of the Greek Bailout as a new Versailles Treaty because many, in Germany, feel that Maastricht was another Versailles Treaty imposed, by France, upon them. While there is no doubt that France tried, and failed, to adopt a predatory attitude toward Germany (and toward the […]
Klaus Kastner responds to the Geithner revelations, and my Versailles Treaty allegory
, 14/11/2014
Klaus Kastner, a regular interlocutor of this blog, has responded to the Geithner revelations (and my take on them) on how Northern European finance ministers were bent on ‘crushing the Greeks’, back in February 2010, with the following:
CRUSH THE GREEKS! The Greek bailout revisited in the light of the Geithner revelations
, 13/11/2014
Tim Geithner is now on the public record,[1] confirming that which we have always known: In February 2010, clueless as to the Euro Crisis that was about to engulf them, Northern European leaders decided to crush Greece. Collectively to punish (against even the Geneva Convention) a nation for having gone bankrupt within a Eurozone whose […]
Preface to the (forthcoming) French edition of THE GLOBAL MINOTAUR
, 12/11/2014
The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the future of the world economy is about to be published in French, as Le Minotaure Planétaire, by newly established, progressive publishing house LES ÉDITIONS DU CERCLE. Read on for a draft of the Preface I composed for this French edition (which is now added to the German, Spanish, […]
Why is Europe not ‘coming together’ in the aftermath of the euro crisis? – audio
, 10/11/2014
This talk was delivered to the PhD Colloquium of the LBJ School of Public Affairs, on 6th November 2014. It was based on this article and is part of my research for my next book EUROPE UNHINGED: The next phase of the global crisis.
A QE proposal for Europe’s crisis – OpEd in The Economist
, 10/11/2014
The Economist kindly invited me to contribute an op-ed to a ’roundtable’ on what form Quantitative Easing should take place in Europe. For The Economist’s site click here. Or read on…
Why the Fiscal Compact is, legally, null and void: Interview by Giuseppe Guarino
, 10/11/2014
In this fascinating interview, published in Corriere della Sera on 29th October 2014 and reproduced here in English, Professor Giuseppe Guarino, a former finance minister of Italy, argues that the Fiscal Compact never had a legal leg to stand on. Additionally, he also claims that, legally, the 3% deficit limit (in the Maastricht and later the […]
MODERN MONEY: AESTHETICS AFTER THE GOLD STANDARD, UC Berkeley, Friday 7th November 2014
, 04/11/2014
An Academic Conference, sponsored by the Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley, November 6–7, 2014 Featured Speaker: Yanis Varoufakis Featured Artist: Danae Stratou Contact sferguson at usf.edu and jordanrose at berkeley.edu for more information. (The image is Andy Warhol’s 200 One Dollar Bills, 1962)
Today’s Eurozone seen from an investor’s perspective – Keynote (audio)
, 01/11/2014
On 30th October I was invited to address a meeting of German, Austrian and Swiss pension fund managers on how they should make sense of the Eurozone’s current state of play. In this keynote (click below for the audio and the accompanying slides) I present an explanation of the causes underlying the impossible dilemmas pension fund […]