Project Syndicate
Climate change is capitalism’s Waterloo – IRISH EXAMINER
, 11/03/2020
Steven Mnuchin’s snide remark about teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos outraged liberal commentators. US treasury secretary Mnuchin, responding to Thunberg’s call for an immediate exit from fossil fuel investments, said that she should go to college “to study economics” before “she can come back and explain […]
Brexit: A rational choice for the wrong reasons? – Financial News & Project Syndicate
, 11/03/2020
The motives and thinking behind Brexit were even less worthy than those behind US President Richard Nixon’s move in 1971 to ditch the Bretton Woods system. But, as with the “Nixon shock,” there is a singular underlying historical factor that explains Brexit. ATHENS – At pivotal historical moments, rational political ruptures often are brought about […]
Imagining a world without capitalism – Financial News
, 09/01/2020
Anti-capitalists had a miserable year. But so did capitalism. While the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party in the UK this month threatened the radical left’s momentum, particularly in the US, where the presidential primaries loom, capitalism found itself under fire from some unexpected quarters. Billionaires, CEOs, and even the financial press have joined intellectuals […]
Time for ECB bonds! (Yes , things are this bad) – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 26/09/2019
ATHENS – During his tenure as President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi forged a variety of weapons that he deployed to shield the eurozone from menacing deflationary forces. Without them, the euro would have been history. However, the deflationary specter haunting Europe was never truly defeated and is now back with considerable vengeance. In the […]
Boris is doing a troika, not a Varoufakis – IRISH EXAMINER
, 27/08/2019
ATHENS – Ever since Boris Johnson moved into 10 Downing Street vowing to re-negotiate the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement with the European Union, the conventional wisdom among many Brexit opponents has been that the UK’s new prime minister is “doing a Varoufakis” and will be crushed in similar fashion. The BBC’s Katya Adler reported from […]
Jeremy Corbyn’s finest hour? IRISH EXAMINER (Project Syndicate)
, 31/07/2019
Jeremy Corbyn must expose Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit as a Trump-deal Brexit and put forward Labour’s plan to end the interminable Brexit ordeal immediately, suggests Yanis Varoufakis Boris Johnson is the first British prime minister in a long time who is free of dilemmas regarding his approach to the European Union. For better or worse, Johnson’s […]
A Greek Canary in a Global Goldmine – Project Syndicate op-ed 17 May 2019
, 20/05/2019
ATHENS – The eurozone country that has become synonymous with insolvency is today proving to be a treasure-trove for some. Traders who bought Greek assets a few years ago have good reason to celebrate, having banked returns that no other market could have provided. But, as is often the case, an opportunity that seems too […]
First they came for Assange…
, 17/04/2019
So, here is an idea: Let us join forces to block Assange’s extradition from any European country to the US, so that he can travel to Stockholm and give his accusers an opportunity to be heard. Let us work together to empower women, while protecting whistle-blowers who reveal nefarious behavior that governments, armies, and corporations […]
Europe’s Leaders Are Aiding Italy’s Populists – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 03/03/2019
The fact that Italy’s public debt has a lower credit rating than private debt is a reflection not of public debt’s intrinsic inferiority but of a political choice made by European leaders. And, by bolstering an authoritarian politician, that choice is now blowing back on them. ATHENS – Italy is now the frontline in the […]
The Brexit clock must be run down, not re-set – op-ed
, 24/01/2019
The overwhelming defeat that Britain’s Parliament inflicted upon Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan was fresh confirmation that there is no substitute for democracy. Members of Parliament deserve congratulations for keeping their cool in the face of a made-up deadline. That deadline is the reason why Brexit is proving so hard and potentially so damaging. […]
Turning Brexit Into a Celebration of Democracy – Project Syndicate op-ed, 26 DEC 2018
, 14/01/2019
Paradoxically, while the current Brexit impasse is pregnant with risk, the British should welcome it. Their discontent with the choices before them is an opportunity, not a curse, and more democracy is the antidote, not the disease. ATHENS – Discontent without end looms over Britain. Leavers and Remainers are equally despondent. Her Majesty’s Government and […]
, 01/10/2018
ATHENS – As deadlines approach and red lines are redrawn in the United Kingdom’s impending withdrawal from the European Union, it is imperative for the people of Britain to regain democratic control over a process that is opaque and ludicrously irrational. The question is: How? Democracy can never aspire to being more than a work […]
The three tribes of austerity: enemies of big government, Germany’s social democrats, and tax-cutting Republicans – op-ed in Project Syndicate
, 31/08/2018
No policy is as self-defeating during recessionary times as the pursuit of a budget surplus for the purpose of containing public debt – austerity, for short. So, as the world approaches the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it is appropriate to ask why austerity proved so popular with Western political elites following […]
Behind Greece’s forest fires: a tragic reminder of our collective responsibility as Europeans
, 27/07/2018
ATHENS – A biblical calamity befell Attica last Monday. I saw its first sign in the late morning at Athens airport, where I was seeing off my daughter to Australia. A strong whiff of burning wood caused me to look up to the sky, where a whitish-yellow sun beckoned, surrounded by the telltale eclipse-like daytime […]
Profiles in Euro-Denial: The thwarted euro reforms & Greece’s permanent debt bondage – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 28/06/2018
ATHENS – Europe’s establishment is luxuriating in two recent announcements that would have been momentous even if they were only partly accurate: The end of Greece’s debt crisis, and a Franco-German accord to redesign the eurozone. Unfortunately, both reports offer fresh proof of the European Union establishment’s remarkable talent for never missing an opportunity to […]
Merkel’s Comeuppance is Europe’s – and the World’s – Misfortune – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 30/05/2018
JOHANNESBURG – One of the most common mistakes European leaders make in interpreting US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward America’s traditional allies, or the alacrity of his administration’s efforts to blow up the international order, is to assume that all of this is unprecedented. Nothing could be further from the truth. To continue reading for […]
Liberal Totalitarianism – Project Syndicate op-ed, 30 APR 2018
, 15/05/2018
LISBON – It used to be an axiom of liberalism that freedom meant inalienable self-ownership. You were your own property. You could lease yourself to an employer for a limited period, and for a mutually agreed price, but your property rights over yourself could not be bought or sold. Over the past two centuries, this […]
No Brexit for a Eurozone Britain? Project Syndicate op-ed
, 04/04/2018
As British Prime Minister Theresa May is finding out, disentangling a member state from the EU is an arduous and complex undertaking. But how much harder would Brexit have been had the United Kingdom adopted the euro back in 2000? ATHENS – “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” […]
How Europe’s Band-Aid Ensures Greece’s Debt Bondage – Project Syndicate op-ed, 26 FEB 2018
, 04/03/2018
ATHENS – Greece’s never-ending public-debt saga has come to signify the European Union’s inept handling of its inevitable eurozone crisis. Eight years after its bankruptcy, the Greek state’s persistent insolvency remains an embarrassment for Europe’s officialdom. That seems to be why, after having declared the euro crisis over in the rest of Europe, the authorities […]
A Good German Idea for 2018 – Project Syndicate op-ed, 4 JAN 2018
, 04/01/2018
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The Economists Who Stole Christmas – Project Syndu
, 30/12/2017
How might opposing schools of economic thought – from neoclassical and Keynesian to Libertarian and Marxist, view Christmas presents? Levity aside, the answer reveals the pompousness and vacuity of each and every economic theory. ATHENS – To welcome the New Year with a cheeky take on the clash of economic ideologies, how might opposing camps’ representatives […]
The High Cost of Denying Class War – Project Syndicate op-ed, 8th December 2017
, 12/12/2017
ATHENS – The Anglosphere’s political atmosphere is thick with bourgeois outrage. In the United States, the so-called liberal establishment is convinced it was robbed by an insurgency of “deplorables” weaponized by Vladimir Putin’s hackers and Facebook’s sinister inner workings. In Britain, too, an incensed bourgeoisie are pinching themselves that support for leaving the European Union […]
Lesbos’s Ghosts, Europe’s Disgrace – Project Syndicate op-ed, 31st October 2017
, 31/10/2017
Oct 31, 2017 YANIS VAROUFAKIS , GEORGE TYRIKOS-ERGAS In September alone, another 2,238 refugees arrived in Lesbos, despite Turkey’s attempts to cut the flow. A camp designed for 2,000 people now “houses” three times that number, behind rows of barbed wire, in a magma of mud, refuse, and human excrement. ATHENS – In 2015, hundreds of thousands of […]
On China as a patient investor – Project Syndicate Video
, 27/10/2017
With President Xi Jinping’s signature ‘Belt and Road’ initiative gaining momentum, more countries will be negotiating with China for inward investment in infrastructure. Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Finance Minister, says that his own experience was highly encouraging. Greece and China, two ancient civilizations, two countries whose peoples have had a long experience and quite […]