Hi fellow AW’ers. Any of you read any of the Varoufakis books? Saw his latest in Waterstones this week and it looks like an illuminating read. Should I start with this one or his earlier tomes?
Or abandon any ideas of reading any of them?
Yannis Varoufakis – ATM
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Personally I wouldn’t give him the time of day.
Really? He’ll be gutted.
I’m sure he’s even now crying into his ouzo. He just reminds me too much of our own radical hard-lefties, and I’ve got no time for politicians who genuinely seem to think wearing a leather jacket makes them cool. (Or who have any interest in being cool whatsoever.) Boak.
My understanding of the Greek debt thing might be wrong, but it struck me that after the Greeks cooked the books to get into the Euro, failed to collect tax from basically anyone ever and then crashed their own economy, you can hardly blame the EU for wanting some guarantees in return for a bailout. I’m not saying austerity was the right course, but Syriza appeared to initially be saying “we want your money and we don’t want to pay it back”, before accidentally winning and realising that Momentum-style playing to the gallery works less well when you’re expected to follow through on the promises you can’t keep.
As I say, I’m sure I’m probably not as well informed about it as I should be, but I still think Varoufakis comes off as a twat.
Hey Bob. I can concede your second para which at least purports a cogent political argument, even though I don’t happen to agree with it. On the other hand, your faintly racist points – ouzo and leather jacket, uh? – and your contention that you think he’s a twat – only serves to confirm your own assertion that you’re not all that well informed.
Nicely written though.
Yes, leather jackets are definitely a racial thing. I also tearfully rescind my outrageous contention that Greek people drink ouzo.
I’m also grateful to discover that thinking a public figure is a twat is now not allowed. Having my own opinions really was a lot of work, and it’s a relief to be so unburdened.
Hmm, ok – so it’s fair game to purport that people from the Thames estuary are pasty faced royalists then?
Knock yourself out.
(Actually the analogue would be “crying into his pint of bitter”. I apologise to any of my countrymen who feel triggered by that phrase and I accept any hate-speech-related sanctions which may fall on my head for its use.)
You’re right of course – the proper analogy would be bitter or, alternatively, ouzo… if this was 1959.
Stupid me, I thought we’d moved on …
I think you’ll find tht Mr Varoufakis is an Australian citizen as well as a Greek citizen, so perhaps he’d be crying into his … pint of Fosters or Castlemaine XXXX or some other Australian lager. Athough having said that, I don’t know whether Castlemaine XXXX still exists. One certainly doesn’t hear anything about it around these parts nowadays.
The XXXX is just OUZO blanked out.
I`m gonna be on your side here Bob because I`m feckin` sick of PC Fascists. I showed your comment and the following exchange to a Greek friend and he laughed saying “the English are becoming soft”.
I`m not advocating Trump style doctrine, that man`s insane but these people (PCF`s) are a mirror image of their views.
I also disagree strongly with your political stance Bob but we live in a free society, err maybe not…
The reason my interest was piqued is because it appears to be a different story being pedalled to the one offered by the Eurocrats and I have a vague feeling, well more than a vague feeling, that we were fed a load of old pony. I am sure that there are embellishments on both sides to fit the arguments being espoused but he seems to write well.
The only bit that I hae me doots about is the ECB’s seeming insistence on austerity as the condition of the bailout, given that it’s at best pretty doubtful that it works and at worst is actively counterproductive. Of all the political camps in the Western world I find trustworthy right now, though, the EU probably comes out top. The hard left are fantasists (and the rest), while the hard right/Brexit camp are either liars, deluded or no-compromise ideologues. (Actually check that: both camps fit the description I just applied to the right.) Sometimes I think the Brussels lot are the only actual grown-ups around.
No no Bob – it’s us Alt-Centrists who are the ideologues this week. The middle is the new extreme, according to Guardian agit-tot Owen Jones
I know, I’m absolutely gutted to discover that a phrase that literally cannot indicate anything other than balanced compromise turns out to mean we’re massive extremists. Lucky we’ve got definitely-not-scrabbling-desperately-to-regain-favour-with-Momentum Owen to set us right.
The logic of it is impeccable – the Centrists have been in charge of most democracies for most of modern history… and yet everything is shit… so… Centrist ideology like consensus, compromise, consultation, concession and majority decisions… must therefore be the tactics of extremists.
I made a joke on Twitter yesterday in which I said that Owen Jones will be taking over as Wales rugby coach just as soon as he’s worked out the difference between a wing and a centre. Sat back, waited for the garlands, plaudits and 500,000 retweets.
Not a sausage.
That’s probably because you’re a massive racist.
The mention of sausages probably gave it away. You shall know them by their casual references to comestibles.
‘Not a sausage’ is clearly an anti-Islamic and anti-semitic reference, Bob. Shame on you.
ANTI ZIONIST ACTUALLY. THEY’RE NOT THE SAME THING.
Have you considered the lack of response might be because jokes are meant to be funny?
You are Yannis Varoufakis, and I claim my £5.
OOOOO back in the knife drawer, you! Not funny? It’s almost as if that was the whole point of my reproducing it here, and you missed it completely!
I’ve got a good one about this Jamaican chap who walks into a bar though?
Oh my aching ribs…
Are you honestly *that* annoyed that I don’t like Yannis Varoufakis, dude? Chill. It’s only opinions. (I apologise if the leather jacket thing hit too close to home, though.)
Do they not just just come in pill form, like the old days?
Got a bit lost as to who this was a response to, Tahir, but if it was me, gizza kiss, you naughty sausage, you.
Well that was a waste of time. The usually dependable AW’ers seem to have let me down. I was rather hoping someone had read at least one of the books – it seems not. Still at least we get the sideshow of @garyjohn and @DisappointmentBob sniping at each other so not all bad.
Sorry Steve – to answer your question, I haven’t read his books but as an ‘Idiot’s Guide’ I recommend his 2013 speech (reproduced a couple of years later in the Guardian) on his decision to defend European capitalism until something better becomes a practical alternative
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist
In fairness I would characterise my contributions as taking the gentle piss while chuckling to myself. And I did answer the question seriously at the beginning! 🙂
You mean you don’t prefer the stuffed suits of the EU to any or every leather wearing lefty? Or do you?
I prefer the conduct of the EU to what I’ve seen of the conduct of YV, if that’s what you’re asking.
Shall we all be racists now Father?
The farm takes up most of the day, and at night I just like a cup of tea. I mightn’t be able to devote myself full time to the old racism.
I don’t care so long as I can have a go at the Greeks. They’re the ones invented the gayness.
‘Sideshow Bob’ and ‘Gary Twitter’
That were reet enjoyable to read!
I’ve read “Adults In The Room”.
I don’t share Varoufakis’ politics, and (probably unsurprisingly), I didn’t much care for the book, although I did try to come to it with an open mind.
The central problem I found is that Varoufakis comes across as an unreliable narrator. He’s clearly an egotist and a self publicist, and during the EU negotiations he repeatedly publicly slated and baited the “troika”, so to read an account in which he arrives to meetings as a sort of wide eyed ingenue, only to have his proferred handshakes cruelly eschewed struck me as suspect to say the least. He also reports EU officials coming out with statements that seem to me to be the stuff of fantasy. I’ve no doubt the EU body politic is chock full of technocrats who place their economic priorities over national sovereignty (that’s sort of the whole point), but I find it very hard to believe that they’re so unsophisticated as to come out with the sorts of crude aphorisms Varoufakis attributes to them.
The whole thing was reminiscent of having a stranger giving you their account of a heated argument in which they’d been involved, in which they were the entirely innocent party and their counterpart was a blathering lunatic. Which is to say that it reads as self aggrandising propaganda.
I think it’s interesting that Varoufakis has subsequently written in opposition to Brexit, but I have to confess that I’ve not investigated his books any further. There are some fabulously well thought through analyses coming from the left (big fan of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital”), but this struck me as a glorified kiss and tell, and I didn’t get much from it.
Your mileage may, of course, vary. If you’re looking to nod along to someone giving the hated Brussels Bureaucrats a bit of a shoeing, and naming names while doing so then I’d guess this would hit the spot. Otherwise, I’d avoid – but that’s just me.
OOAA, before anyone jumps down my throat for not loving Varoufakis.
A conniving hypocrite turd just like all of them.
I’m intrigued to hear why @garyjohn disagrees with bob’s second para, where he says, “the Greeks cooked the books to get into the Euro, failed to collect tax from basically anyone ever and then crashed their own economy”. That was the story we were told, as far as I recall.
How, why, and to what degree, is that not broadly the case?
A little nuance.
http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-problem-of-greece-is-not-only-a-tragedy-it-is-a-lie
Sorry Rob, but that’s not nuance. That’s Pilger hammering Syriza.
But I asked about the cause of the Greek financial collapse, not the political wrangling over how it should or could be recovered.
Once again, I ask what’s wrong with the broad analysis that the Greeks a) cooked the books to join the Euro, b) couldn’t be arsed to collect taxes properly, and c) ran out of liquidity as a result.
Which is the analysis that @garyjohn said he didn’t happen to agree with.
That’s why it’s nuance, Vulpes. Widening the discussion.
As far as yer man Yannis, this seems a pretty balanced critique:
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/05/yanis-varou-fakiss-retelling-greek-debt-crisis-will-galvanise-eurosceptics
Well yes, that’s back on target for the OP; I read that when the May issue dropped into the mail box. But I still haven’t heard from @garyjohn as to what part of bob’s precis of the cause of the Greek financial collapse he doesn’t agree with. Don’t suppose he’s going to bother to elucidate now though.
You might find this interesting. There was a more in depth Radio 4 programme which I can’t find.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-17108367/how-goldman-sachs-helped-mask-greece-s-debt
Fat ouzo slurping pinko commie leather jacket wearing plate smashing prog deserting warbling Zeus worshiping sunburned deceased git.
https://youtu.be/ZI6Qgvy33Uc
You forgot Kebab eating @pencilsqueezer.
While we are on Greek Bashing where do you stand on Nana Miskouri?
I’m a fan but I prefer it when there isn’t too much nutmeg or potato in it.
I wouldn’t dream of standing on a nana. Greek or otherwise.
I’m not a barbarian.
Well, I’m very disappointed at the response to this. Surely the key Afterword fact is that his other half is the subject of Pulp’s Common People?
She told him that her dad was loaded. He said “in that case I’ll have the means of production returned to the hands of the proletariat”, she said “fine”.
“But we must first establish the precise nature of the post-revolutionary Russian state.” Or was that the Redskins?
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