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"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 […]

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. 

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. 

Two interviews: The gruesome Greek sideshow continues while the main game is played out off camera

, 28/09/2011

Once more, Athens is replete with TV crews from all over the world, eager to relate the latest in the long running saga of whether/when/how Greece will default. Meanwhile, the real game is being played out elsewhere, in the corridors of power in Frankfurt, Brussels, Berlin, Washington where no serious person bothers to discuss Greece […]

Guest Post: Jerry Goldstein is sure of a Greek default, cannot see the eurozone breaking up but can see no way out of the mire either

, 12/09/2011

GUEST POST by Jerry Goldstein, ex City banker and regular correspondent of this blog I see the probability of Greece defaulting at 1, on a scale of zero to one. But I do not necessarily think this is sufficient to cause a breakup of the eurozone. Whilst a Greek default will cause volatility to spike […]

Greece's desperate new tax grab: Akin to carpetbombing the economy in order to save it

, 12/09/2011

Back in the bleak days of the Vietnam war, Peter Arnett reported that some US Army officer, in a desperate bid to defend the destruction of a Vietnamese village, commented that “to save the village from the communists we had to destroy it.” While the quote has been disputed, it resonates nicely with that which […]

Is Greece finished?

, 11/09/2011

In one sense Greece was finished the moment the Great Recession cut its growth rate (in the second quarter of 2009) from among the highest in Europe to almost zero.

Hour long radio interview (91.5FM WNYE New York) on the eurozone crisis and the Modest Proposal

, 29/08/2011

Hour long radio interview (91.5FM WNYE New York, broadcasting across NY, NJ, CT, and PA) in which I discussed the euro crisis, explained  why eurobonds are essential as long as they are not guaranteed by the eurozone’s member-states, and argued in favour of the continuing appeal of the Modest Proposal (click here for the Levy Institute […]

Why Italy? Why Spain? And why the EFSF’s size does not matter

, 04/08/2011

Italy and Spain are tumbling because one problematic structure (the European Financial Stability Fund, the EFSF) has been conjured up in order to prop up another problematic structure (the eurozone). The result is that both structures are reaching the end of their tether. Enlarging the newer of the two problematic structures (the EFSF) will not […]

Greece cannot be rescued unless the eurozone is redesigned: Interviewed on ABC LATELINE

, 25/07/2011

Here is the transcript and video of my ABC TVextended  intrerview on LATELINE regarding the recent Greek ‘rescue’ plan. Any comments? Transcript ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: Well just a short time ago I spoke to Yanis Varoufakis, an economist at Athens University. Yanis Varoufakis many thanks for talking to Lateline tonight. YANIS VAROUFAKIS, ECONOMIST, ATHENS UNIVERSITY: […]

Europe’s Faustian Bargain: On the latest attempt to resolve the Greek debt crisis and its repercussions

, 22/07/2011

The Agreement reached yesterday by Europe’s political and financial elites is meant to tackle, once and for all, the Greek debt problem. Just as in May 2010 the idea was that intra-eurozone contagion could be prevented by ringfencing Greece (recall the first Greek bailout, the creation of the European Financial Stability Facility, the EFSF, and […]

Cessation of posts till end of July. But here is a message from Southern Crete…

, 12/07/2011

          Having spent a day on a deserted Cretan beach overlooking Libya, I returned to Loutro (our haven) to discover messages on my phone suggesting that I chose the worse week to go AWOL: the week when the euro is finally collapsing. Steady on folks! The euro crisis has a long, […]

Giuliano Amato and Guy Verhofstadt answer questions from To VIMA on why they signed the Declaration espousing the Modest Proposal's main tenets

, 09/07/2011

Some days ago, I was asked by Greek Sunday newspaper To VIMA to bring them in contact with some of the main signatories of the Declaration in favour of a new New Deal for Europe, a statement of support for the Modest Proposal’s main tenets. Three questions were posed by Pavlos Papadopoulos (To VIMA financial […]

George Momferratos, on how best to promote the Modest Proposal

, 09/07/2011

Extracts from an intervention, on the Modest Proposal and how best to avoid negative reactions to it (especially here in Greece) from George Momferratos. See also below for my response. What do readers think? Your input will be appreciated.

American Common Sense on Europe: The NYT largely adopting the logic of the Modest Proposal, and even Jeffrey Sachs making sympathetic noises

, 07/07/2011

For some time the rest of the world has been finding it hard to follow the passionate infighting in the US over the federal budget. Only two years after Barrack Obama’s landslide, the United States became, effectively, ungovernable. The current standoff regarding the mystical (to non-Americans) debt ceiling causes a mixture of consternation and incredulity […]

FALSITY MOST FOUL: Why Jean Claude Juncker is precisely, and inexcusably, wrong regarding the Greek crisis and its causes

, 07/07/2011

Jean Claude Juncker has, in the past, taken courageous positions that exuded far-sightedness.[1] However, his latest intervention regarding the Greek debt crisis reveals a serious inability to grasp the euro crisis in its entirety. On 3rd July he told Focus Magazin that "[t]he sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited", referring of course to the [...]

How much for your children? Discussing the Greek crisis on the Keiser Report

, 06/07/2011

Interviewed by Max Keiser for the Keiser Report. Click here and go to 14′  

Declaration by distinguished former European Leaders in Support of the Modest Proposal’s main tenets: The urgent need for a fresh New Deal for Europe

, 04/07/2011

Europe’s most serious deficit is political. A dearth of political will, democratic legitimacy and purposeful, farsighted leadership is responsible for the Eurozone’s repeated failures to get to grip with the Crisis’ different manifestations. Proposals like that our own Modest Proposal, of Tremonti-Yuncker and others offered Europe obvious alternatives to the current policy mix which exacerbates […]

Radio and TV interviews on the Euro/Greek Crisis and the Modest Proposal. Plus an announcement…

, 03/07/2011

For those interested, a number of links to recent radio and TV interviews on the latest twists and turns of the Greek-euro crisis follow: In conversation with Trevor Chappell, on ABC Radio National (27  June 2011) Interviewed in the As It Happens leading news and current affairs program of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) – […]

The Modest Proposal featured in UBS Client Magazine (Wealth Management Research) and in Basler Zeitung (Swiss Financial Newspaper)

, 30/06/2011

      That these are turbulent times I need not remind you of. But when ‘radical’ views (like our Modest Proposal) are (A)  endorsed by, on the one hand, demonstrators on the streets of Athens (whom I addressed in past weeks) and (B) promoted by banking colossus UBS in its recent Wearlth Management Research […]

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