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From Ponzi Growth to Ponzi Austerity
, 31/05/2012
Austerity is meant as a belt-tightening exercise the purpose of which is to reduce debt. Pure and simple. Of course, for austerity to work one of the following two conditions must hold.
Interviewed by FXstreet.com on Grexit…
, 31/05/2012
One year ago we heard for the very first time about rumors of Greece leaving the Eurozone. What has changed in one year to go from considering it just gossip to taking it as a real fact? Something very simple: at long last the truth bubbled up to the surface of the murky pond [...]It is (un)official (but true): Spain is the fourth fallen Eurozone member-state
, 29/05/2012
When the Spanish Prime Minister declared that the Spanish state would save Bankia while at the same time admitting that Spain could not raise the cash to do it, two were the plausible explanations of how this feat was to be achieved.
There’s a lady who’s sure…
, 28/05/2012
I dedicate this post, belatedly, to Christine Lagarde. For her seriously ridiculous remarks on Greek child poverty not being as worthy of her concern as the poverty of far worse off African children. So, to the Managing Director of the one global organisation which has contributed the most to child poverty in Africa and Latin America, […]
A reply to Kantoos Economics on the merits of the Modest Proposal
, 28/05/2012
Kantoos Economics recently honoured me with an invocation to its readers to read my musings on the Euro Debacle, and to judge them critically. I thank Kantoos Economics for a simple reason:
What does bank recapitalisation mean? An exchange with Joseph Halevi
, 27/05/2012
In reaction to my Le Monde piece, Joseph Halevi (my close friend and co-author) send me an email, regarding the meaning of bank re-capitalisation, that started as short exchange which you, dear reader, may find of interest. Any comments?
A Paradox of Risk Aversion is haunting the global economy: Rob Johnson’s poignant warning against both bubbles and austerity
, 26/05/2012
We keep forgetting that every Crisis, like a coin, has two faces. One is the mountain of debt and losses that is crushing states, people and banks. The other is an equally imposing mountain of accumulated savings that are to ‘frightened’ to fund investment, thus remaining idle and frittering away. Keynes famously invoked the Paradox […]
Bloomberg Businessweek on UADPhilEcon – the progressive Athens University PhD Economics Program that is now threatened by the Crisis
, 25/05/2012
A few days ago, Brendan Greeley, of Bloomberg, got in touch with me to discuss UADPhilEcon, the Doctoral Program in Economics that I helped set up at the University of Athens. The following article was the result: Greece’s Brain Drain Has Begun Apparently, Brendan had heard me say, in some interview, that one of the […]
Fiscal Waterboarding versus Eurobonds: Misrepresenting the latter to effect the former
, 24/05/2012
They came. They talked eurobonds. They left in a miff. Why?
Rob Johnson on the economists' collective guilt
, 23/05/2012
Rob Johnson, President of INET, on the sophisticated (but often unintentional) fraud that passes as scientific economics. (I could not, and would not, have put it differently myself.)
On ABC Radio National's 'The World Today', interviewed by Eleanor Hall
, 21/05/2012
This morning I visited the ABC’s Ultimo studio for three interviews on (what else?) Greece and the eurozone. Here is one of them (the other two were for ABC TV). For the ABC’s website page, which includes the audio and the transcript, click here. The full interview (too long to broadcast on live radio) can […]
Guest Post: Today Germany is the big loser, not Greece – by Marshall Auerbach
, 20/05/2012
Just before the Crisis erupted, in April 2010, with Greece falling into the troika’s embrace in May 2010, I had written an article (A New Versailles haunts Europe) to argue that Germany was about to commit the error that the winners’ of World War I had committed by imposing upon Germany the Versailles Treaty. It was […]
Discussing Grexit in Washington Post, Huffington Post and ABC Radio
, 19/05/2012
My piece in The Huffington Post entitled Sure there’s Greece… But what about Spain? My ‘take’ featured in The Washington Post under the title How bad would it be for Greece to leave the euro? Participating in a radio debate, ABC Radio National, on whether Greece should exit the euro, entitled No happy ending if […]
Assorted questions on Greece and Europe by Chinese and Swedish journalists – with brief answers
, 19/05/2012
During the last two days, I was asked several questions by a Chinese and a Swedish press agency over email. Below I list the questions and my answers to them, hoping they might be useful.
A Modest Proposal for Overcoming the Euro Crisis, Version 3.0 – Policy 3 significantly amended
, 19/05/2012
The Modest Proposal never ceases to evolve. Following the issue of Version 3.0, we have made some significant changes, primarily, on Policy 3 (the Investment-led Recovery, Rebalancing and Cohesion Program). Click here for the latest version. Comments welcome.
Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina
, 16/05/2012
Mark Weisbrot has been arguing, for some time now, that Greece must try to emulate Argentina; that is, to default on its debts not as a bargaining strategy that yields a New Deal within the Eurozone but, rather, in the context of exiting the Eurozone altogether and going it alone. Recently, Paul Krugman has endorsed […]
The Modest Proposal for Overcoming the Eurozone Crisis, Version 3.0
, 15/05/2012
This blog was established in order to throw useful light on the Eurozone Crisis and, in particular, to present our Modest Proposal for resolving it. The first version was presented in November 2010. Since then we have had a number of updates. Today, I have the pleasure of posting Version 3.0, a thoroughly re-worked variant […]
Debating 'Grexit' on France24 tv
, 15/05/2012
As the media are replete with talk of a Greek exit, and Europe’s leadership has decided to play a ‘game of chicken’ with the Greek voters, France24 organised a debate involving the following. Click here to watch it (and here for the second part). Yanis VAROUFAKIS. Professor of Economics, Athens University – from Seattle; Sony […]
On ABC Radio National, PM program: 'Stupendously idiotic' policies for Greece can't work.
, 14/05/2012
For the audio of the interview click. For the transcript (courtesy of ABC), continue reading…
A one-word explanation on why the eurozone cannot inflate its way out of trouble: Spain!
, 10/05/2012
So, Germany seems to have pushed the inflation-phobia monkey off its back. Its finance minister has condoned real wage rises for German industrial workers and the head of the Bundesbank has acknowledged a readiness to allow German inflation to outpace that of the rest of the eurozone. After fifteen years of violating the Maastricht agreement […]
Europe’s potential gains from a silent alliance between Paris and Athens
, 09/05/2012
Greece and France go back a long, long way. The Greek revolution, that procured our small, and constantly problematic, nation-state, was a spinoff (to all intents and purposes) of the French revolution and the culmination of a Greek Enlightenment that owed everything to the French Enlightenment (and almost nothing to either its German or Scottish […]
On CNN Int and Democracy Now, commenting of the Greek and French elections
, 09/05/2012
On Monday 7th May, a day after the French and Greek elections, I was asked to comment on both these momentous results first by Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, and a little later that day by Christiane Amanpour, CNN International. Both interviews covered quite a lot of ground and departed from the usual epidermic coverage we […]
On China Radio International (中国国际广播电台), discussing the Greek elections
, 03/05/2012
A radio panel discussion on China Radio International discussing, for a whole hour (!), the (I am afraid) inconsequential Greek Elections that are coming up this Sunday. Click here PANEL: –Zhao Changhui, Senior analyst with the Export-Import Bank of China; –Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens; –Nicholas Economides, Professor of […]