Thursday, April 23, 2015

Yanis Varoufakis — A New Deal for Greece

None of this means that common ground cannot be achieved immediately. The Greek government wants a fiscal-consolidation path that makes sense, and we want reforms that all sides believe are important. Our task is to convince our partners that our undertakings are strategic, rather than tactical, and that our logic is sound. Their task is to let go of an approach that has failed.
Project Syndicate
A New Deal for Greece
Yanis Varoufakis | Financial Minister of Greece

6 comments:

Jose Guilherme said...

An excellent analysis of all that's wrong with the ECB can be read here:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/22/end-the-european-central-bank-dictatorship/

Ralph Musgrave said...

Here’s a translation of that passage from Varoufakis’s article. Well – a translation of the whole article actually.

Give us Greeks more money which of course we’ll repay (ho ho), cos we’d rather sit around in a nice warm climate on the edge of the Mediterranean than go where the jobs are, i.e. factories in Northern Europe.

As for our committment to reform, you can tell how keen we are on that by the fact that we've recently hired loads more bureaucrats for our ineffecient and bloated bureaucracy.

Matt Franko said...

But Ralph I dont know if the "northern factories" type lifestyle is where its at ultimately anyway...

Look where the EUR is now stuck below $1.10.... these are lower real terms than when they rolled the thing out...

And if they intend on "competing" with the Asian USD zombies they are going to have to lower their real terms even further from here... way lower...

So that doesnt sound like nirvana either...

I dont know if the teutonic gnomes from the north have the answers with all of their "manufacturing" and BS either...

we're already flooded with product... we need more? I dont think so...

rsp,

Ignacio said...

Why would northerners want more immigrants within their borders anyway? Isn't UK discussing about closing borders before more outsiders keep stealing their jobs? What about those poor polish drivers being very much blackmailed by Germans as they try to make a living, offering more competitive prices to the market-god?

Maybe this stupid game of "let's all export to Mars, (because exports are not a real cost?) is exchange of some USD" zombies (because the world does not have enough output gap); or "let's play world's bankster" economy of NY or London with their hyper-efficient paper-shuffling business that produce no real value; or the keep inventing economic unions (with no-fiscal unions) to undermine any sort of developing competitiveness with not-so-random trade agreements and quotas games; or the "thrive in chaos" military adventurism of the empire; maybe all those games are running its course and reaching their very end and logical conclusion of race to the bottom and collapse.

Any of the schemes this guys in "power" (be them politicians or corporate overlords) can come with are short sighted and do not fix anything. After all YV is right about one thing (the need for a financial recycling mechanism in this world), but that alone is not going to cut it. We need smarter policy too, but to carry out policy you need sovereignty, something right now, YV, you lack.

No worries though, it's not very long until the far-right will do what the far-left is yet again failing to do. For a short period of time at least, regain sovereignty, and let the world burn. SYRIZA is done, what comes later, no one knows. The international left from other European countries is not coming to rescue you, not in time at leas, so that's not coming certainly. All this meanwhile the USA "chaos policy" is creating waves of refugees across the Mediterranean and the whole ME one steep from complete implosion.

Bleak picture in Europe, but things move sloooow. 2016, then 2017, then the 'put' is pulled off and the race (to the bottom) accelerates. Meanwhile, Greece, you are alone in this game. TPTB are going to make an example out of you.

John said...

Ralph,

"Give us Greeks more money which of course we’ll repay (ho ho), cos we’d rather sit around in a nice warm climate on the edge of the Mediterranean than go where the jobs are, i.e. factories in Northern Europe."

You mean like all those Texans and Oklahomans circa the Great Depression lazing around and taking in the sun? Or the Jarrow crusaders? Or all those millions of benefits scroungers, Cadillac queens, food stamp parasites?

As you must be aware, the so-called "bail outs" are a bail out of the French and German banks. Absent its own currency, Greece cannot get out of this mess without the German-run ECB ending the torture. There is no amount of neoliberal restructuring, privatization or labour flexibility that can magically reinvigorate the Greek economy. Greece is being destroyed by the maddest experiment in economic history - the Euro.

Unless you're being sarcastic, I can't understand your comments. Usually, you're quite perceptive when it comes to macro stuff.

Greg said...

Agreed John, I hope Ralph was being sarcastic too.

Very disappointing comment if not.... as if the Greeks could just drive up to Germany and get a factory job. Theres got to be literally hundreds of thousands of unfilled positions in those German or French firms, all paying 30-40K Euros, if they'd just get off their butts and take them.

Its like the people here who suggest that min wage workers who cant make ends meet should get "another" job. Hell millions cant find their first one, now we got millions more looking for a second??