Politics and Economics
Talking to my daughter about the economy – Preface to the German edition
, 23/04/2015
Last summer (an aeon it seems before my recent sojourn into politics&government) I spent ten days writing a short book in Greek on economics. The idea was to write it as if it were addressed to my young daughter, so as to keep complex ideas simple and to test my capacity to home in on […]
A question of respect (or lack thereof)… – the Greek veto over Russia that never was
, 29/01/2015
On the first day in our ministries, the power of the media to distort hit me again. The world’s press was full of reports on how the SYRIZA government’s first foreign policy ‘move’ was to veto fresh sanctions on Russia. Now, I am not qualified to speak on foreign affairs but, nonetheless, I must share […]
Finance Ministry slows blogging down but ends it not
, 27/01/2015
The time to put up or shut up has, I have been told, arrived. My plan is to defy such advice. To continue blogging here even though it is normally considered irresponsible for a Finance Minister to indulge in such crass forms of communication. Naturally, my blog posts will become more infrequent and shorter. But […]
Heard the news? Greece's finance minister is no extremist – THE TELEGRAPH
, 27/01/2015
Yanis Varoufakis: Greece’s future finance minister is no extremist The man touted as frontunner to be Syriza’s finance minister is not the socialist firebrand which one might expect By Peter Spence, Economics Correspondent 3:07PM GMT 26 Jan 2015 Syriza, a hard left party, that outrightly rejects EU-imposed austerity, has given Greek politics its greatest electoral […]
Yesterday Greek democracy raged against the dying of the light. Europe and the World should join us
, 26/01/2015
Today, the people of Greece gave a vote of confidence to hope. They used the ballot box, in this splendid celebration of democracy, to put an end to a self-reinforcing crisis that produces indignity in Greece and feeds Europe’s darkest forces. The people of Greece today sent a message of solidarity to the North, to […]
Biblical economics leave everybody blind and toothless – Interviewed by Johanna Jaufer
, 25/01/2015
Am Sonntag wählt Griechenland ein neues Parlament. In den Umfragen liegt das Linksbündnis SYRIZA an erster Stelle. Die Partei rund um Alexis Tsipras wirbt mit der Ankündigung, sich um einen Schuldenerlass für Griechenland zu bemühen. Schon lange informeller Berater der Partei, ist der Ökonom Yanis Varoufakis seit kurzem offizieller Kandidat und wird immer wieder als [...]Radio interview: Greek austerity before the 25th January General Election
, 20/01/2015
ON CHICAGO’s TOP RADIO SHOW
On the ECB’s latest contradiction (and how it helps Greece)
, 15/01/2015
There is little doubt that the OMT program has been Mr Mario Draghi’s (the European Central Bank’s dexterous-yet-severely-constrained President) greatest success story. In the summer of 2012 the euro was on the brink. Mr Draghi’s announcement of an intention to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign debt (Italian in particular) to stem the contagion in the […]
The world economy post-2008 – Interviewed by the Institute of Regulation & Risk
, 14/01/2015
Since the demise of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and ensuing great financial crisis (GFC), it would seem rather obscenely that central bankers and monetary policy has been obsessed with “deflation”, rather than remedying the actual causes of the crisis itself. Is this a fair analysis?
Stop Greece’s fiscal waterboarding – interviewed by la Repubblica
, 05/01/2015
Interviewed today by la Repubblica. CLICK HERE (Italian version only). Or read on…
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,…
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 […]
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, […]
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.
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: