More Questions from the newbies

[Peter W]

In support of Nomad and Greek builders:-

Nomad I have used regularly including an initial shipment of furniture, white goods, the lot, never a problem, never a breakage a very accommodating bunch of people to work with - far more relaxing and cheaper than battling across Europe in a Transit!

Our house construction began in April 2011 and was completed to our entire satisfaction in October 2011. My Civil Engineer helped with land purchase, complicated as it is in a Natura area, designed the house and managed the construction from start to finish including managing the budget. The final price was exactly as quoted - not a single Euro more. There are some super-reliable people and great craftsmen working in the construction industry here - you just have to find 'em

Peter

[Mackie]

Thank you Ladies and Gents. We have contacted Nomad and also will bring handful of things ourselves.
Much appreciated
Mackie

[Kilkis]

...For me, he didn't/doesn't have m(any) faults ....I respect your point of view so please elaborate if you have the time...

He was totally the wrong person to send to negotiate in the Eurogroup.

Firstly he is an academic. In academic circles you win the argument by presenting the best academic case, in this instance an economic one. The Eurogroup had no interest in economic arguments. All their decisions are purely political. They are not stupid people and know that what they are doing has no valid economic basis but politically they cannot admit to that. Raising such economic arguments risks exposing the weakness of their political position so had to be suppressed. He should have known that. As finance minister it is his job to know such things.

Even ignoring the academic problem, he is an extremely bad negotiator. Political negotiation is all about building relationships with other members of the group using offers of actions with some sort of mutual benefit. He made no attempt to engage politically, simply to challenge.

He was part of the team that put together the Syriza manifesto that promised the Greek people that they could stop austerity and remain in the Euro. Either he was a complete idiot to believe that would be possible, having witnessed how the Troika treated the previous Greek government, or he was prepared to deliberately lie in order to get into power.

As an economist I agree with a great many of his views. He is a very intelligent economist and he is not tied in any way to neo-classical economic theory, which is one of the major problems with the world today. Based on what I have seen of him in interviews I like him as a person and he certainly doesn't deserve the opprobrium heaped on him by the media. As a negotiator for Greece and the Greek people he was a disaster.

Warwick

[Stavros]

Your analysis is spot-on dear Warwick! I only hope Greek people would try to understand more sometimes and not rely on ''rebellious'' behaviour...

[YoMo2]

He was totally the wrong person to send to negotiate in the Eurogroup.........

Agree with everything you say about Varoufakis, but maybe a little harsh on him? Tsipras should take a major part of the blame too. He should probably have retained Varoufakis as advisor rather than appointing him Finance Minister, thus thrusting him into the limelight, where his inflexibility and academic rigour were obvious and so challenging.

Mind you, none of that would have made any difference to the eventual outcome, given that, as you point out, the Greek government apparently thought they could renegotiate the bailout terms and remain in the euro. Never going to happen.

The question for me is, whether Varoufakis actually believed that could happen, or whether he felt that they should leave the euro if they failed to renegotiate the deal. He did walk away once it became obvious Tsipras was going to cave in. Given the later "Plan B" revelations, it seems that maybe he felt they should have called the EU's bluff. The EU had just as much as Greece to lose from Greece leaving.

I've not read much from him since. Has he said whether he thinks they should have left? And whether he would have done it if it had been up to him?

Andrew

[Kilkis]

I think I've seen one interview where he said that Greece should remain in the Euro but nothing about what he would have done. You have to remember that others in the Eurogroup were raising the issue of Greece leaving the Euro so he wouldn't be doing his job as a finance minister if he didn't have a contingency plan for that eventuality. It's also pretty obvious that such a plan would need to be kept secret until it was activated. There would be financial chaos when it was activated but there would have been infinitely worse chaos if it had been flagged up in advance.

I definitely don't mean to imply that he should carry all the blame. Clearly the whole Syriza team must carry the blame for what they promised.

Also a lot of what was written about him was total spheroids. The media have little grasp of logic. Typical pseudo-logical argument, "He wrote a book on game theory therefore he was using game theory to try to win the negotiation." I saw no evidence to support that whatsoever. His arguments were based on solid economic ideas that he had voiced long and often well before Syriza got anywhere near power and which are supported by many modern thinking economists.

Warwick

[YoMo2]

Yeah. Just loved that whole thing about game theory. Makes you weep.

Andrew

[Peter W]

For anyone interested in keeping up with Yianis Varoufakis thinking on the future europe here's a link to his website:-

https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/

Peter

[filippos]

Just followed your link using Firefox and this came up

Your connection is not secure
The owner of yanisvaroufakis.eu has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.

Switched to M'soft Edge and received similar

There’s a problem with this website’s security certificate
This might mean that someone’s trying to trick you or steal any information that you send to the server.
You should close this site immediately. (My emphasis)
Go to my homepage instead ? Continue to this web page (not recommended)

Being paranoid about security I went no further.

[scooby]

If you look at his Wiki page on the right you will see a link to his official website, that works for me OK.

[Kilkis]

The link Peter posted starts https, which means it is an encrypted connection and the browser looks for a certificate of authenticity. The link on his Wiki page is the same basic address but starts http, which means it is not encrypted and so the browser doesn't look for the certificate of authenticity, hence it works for Scooby.

If instead of using Google you use Yahoo to search for Yanis Varoufakis you also get a link to the https version and it also gives the same Insecure Connection error. I am using iObit Advanced System Care 10 and that reports the site as "Safe" when it comes up in the Yahoo search so I don't think you need to worry about going to it. It is probably some sort of hiccup with the certificate. It's not a site that you are going to give any personal information to so there is no need for it to be encrypted.

Warwick

[Mackie]

Despite his many faults, everything Varoufakis said about the economics of the bailout programme was correct. The austerity regime drove Greece into a debt deflationary spiral from which it cannot recover on its own. At least the IMF has admitted it got its predictions wrong. The governments of the EU countries cannot admit to their voters that they won't get their money back so they pretend and extend. The ECB, and other central banks for that matter, cannot admit that quantitative easing doesn't work despite ample proof from Japan, where it has failed for over 20 years. Looking on the bright side, however, Greece's debt problems will fade into obscurity when major, multinational, private, corporate junk bonds start to default and the world discovers that they have been packaged into AAA rated Collateralised debt Obligations, CDOs, just like sub-prime mortgages were.

Warwick

I have no doubt that the debts (or most of them) will be written off soon enough (despite what Schauble says) My real concern is the long term for a nation that is neglecting their young talent in a way that I have not witnessed or read about it anywhere else on earth (for the developed world at least).
I have been in 4 real life situations over the last few weeks through work and travels (as recent as yesterday), where I have experienced and witnessed, first hand, a large groups of both young talented Greeks and families leaving the country. So many are heading believe it or not for the UK and taking on any jobs for silly money( I obviously know the reason for the spike on this one situation in anticipation for Brexit). I always thought the strong family bond will ensure those people return but I am not sure anymore.
It's not easy for me to say this but the recovery is long long way, even for highly optimistic people like myself.
Cheers
Mackie

[Kilkis]

...I have no doubt that the debts (or most of them) will be written off soon enough (despite what Schauble says)...

I wouldn't bank on that. There is not a finance minister in the Eurogroup that can go back to his constituents and tell them that he has loaned €X billion to Greece and they are not going to get it back.

Warwick

[YoMo2]

...I have no doubt that the debts (or most of them) will be written off soon enough (despite what Schauble says)...

I wouldn't bank on that. There is not a finance minister in the Eurogroup that can go back to his constituents and tell them that he has loaned €X billion to Greece and they are not going to get it back.

Warwick

Maybe they won't have a choice........

Andrew

[Mackie]

...I have no doubt that the debts (or most of them) will be written off soon enough (despite what Schauble says)...

I wouldn't bank on that. There is not a finance minister in the Eurogroup that can go back to his constituents and tell them that he has loaned €X billion to Greece and they are not going to get it back.

Warwick

Call it restructuring, call it what you wish. The alternative is unthinkable for both the Europeans and for Greece.
No matter how hard the IMF battles with the Europeans fir the Greek case, the only way to survive within the European Union is to have a great discipline (both on fiscal and reforms). IMHO, this will not happen and the alternative (Grexit) would lead to poverty and high inflation ( the Venezuelan scenario)

As Andrew says, they may have no choice and just look out for the new pressure coming soon from the US&UK markets

Cheers
Mackie