Tuesday, January 27, 2015

In Profile: The New Greek Finance Minister Who Considers Himself a "Marxist Libertarian"

Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens, has been appointed  the finance minister of Greece, by the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Since January 2013, Varoufakis has been teaching at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

He considers himself a "Marxist Libertarian" (Sounds like libwapism on streoids.)

WSJ reports:
 "[H]e has lambasted the harsh medicine of spending cuts as 'fiscal waterboarding' and recently described Europe’s new growth plan to address the crisis as a “stupidity” that would fall short of goals."
Greece should have never joined the euro area, but now that it’s in, a departure would be like falling from a cliff, Varoufakis has said. “The last line in Hotel California explains where we are: you can check out any time, but you can never leave,” he told Bloomberg Radio in May 2012

He is not a stranger to politics. Varoufakis was an adviser to former Prime Minister George Papandreou before the Pasok leader assumed power and took Greece into its bailout in 2010.

He follows ZeroHedge and Max Keiser on his twitter feed.

He started earned his doctorate at the University of Essex in England. He holds  dual Greek-Australian citizenship and is 53 years old.

He is author, among other books, of:

The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy

Foundations of Economics: A Beginner's Companion

Modern Political Economics: Making Sense of the Post-2008 World

Game Theory: A Critical Introduction

Economic Indeterminacy: A personal encounter with the economists' peculiar nemesis

Game Theory: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences

 -RW 

19 comments:

  1. "Marxist Libertarian"

    LOL!!! The Idiot Left just keeps on becoming more and more Orwellian with their total butchering of language.

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  2. I bet the Marxist in him wins out every time. Sort of like the ole senator that said his conscience struggled with the great issues of the day. Unfortunately, his conscience never won. But in all seriousness, I'd guess hes a Marxist on economic issues and a libertarian on social issues.

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    1. Economic freedom is a social issue.

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    2. Rational math suggests that the Greeks need to default on billions in debt which cannot be repaid, exit the Euro and rebuild their economy on the back of an independent, weaker currency. This also means forcing the elites holding bad bonds to recognize their losses and opens the door to more exits by other EU members who must take similar steps to clear the slate and start on fresh financial footings.

      It’s not an end to austerity (ie., living within one’s means) that people need, but rather an end to the debt-financed facade that was sold to them as prosperity. In this sense, the Greeks are at the leading edge of revelations coming soon to many other countries, as the tyranny of debt comes to the close of an epic chapter.

      http://jugglingdynamite.com/2015/01/26/bankers-nervous-as-greeks-review-impossible-debt-deals/

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    3. "Economic freedom is a social issue."

      Yup. the King of social issues.

      He can't be both a Marxist and libertarian at the same time. That's just BS marketing on his part.

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    4. "I bet the Marxist in him wins out every time."

      lol, very funny!

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    5. Another Bailout: FXCM To Forgive 90% Of Its Mostly Foreign "Negative Balance" Customers

      Because without whale clients, no exchange can continue to skim off the bid/ask margin while suckering in more "overnight wannabe millionaires" with 200x leverage.

      So who are the generous beneficiaries of this Jefferies-funded bailout? For the answer we go to the WSJ:

      Retail foreign-exchange broker FXCM Inc. was nearly felled by outsize bets made by foreign customers who aren’t subject to U.S. regulations, according to people familiar with regulators’ review of the firm.



      While some U.S. clients lost money when the Swiss National Bank scrapped a cap on the country’s currency, the bulk of the losses were borne by clients at FXCM’s affiliates in London, Singapore and other locations abroad, the regulators said. Those affiliates weren’t subject to leverage caps imposed by U.S. regulators, allowing overseas clients to make bigger bets—and take bigger losses.

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-28/another-bailout-fxcm-forgive-90-its-mostly-foreign-negative-balance-customers

      why bother with labels when we're the real thing?

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  3. ROFL...it's like saying I am a 'Werewolf Vampire'. This is a blood feud...pick a side!

    Atleast our very own troll Wolfie honestly self-identified himself.

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  4. This is calculated. Politicians everywhere are trying to play the growth in libertarianism. But wow, I thought bleeding heart libertarians was bad. That you can even say this in public is just weird.

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    Replies
    1. next stop... missing brain libertarians?

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  5. This doesn't surprise me anymore than a multimillionaire European Champagne Socialist politician ranting on about class warfare and the plight of the working class. Phony rent seekers is all they are.

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  6. I assume that means he's a "libertarian" in the Bakunin/Kropotkin tradition ... although even those two at least advocated for the complete destruction of the formal state (without recognizing their own ideas would necessitate a state)

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  7. So he's philosophically capable of any policy on the spectrum from totalitarian to anarchist. Great, that really narrows it down.

    With his fluency of symbolic defiance, this guy is just the man the oligarchs need to extend the lease on Greek serfdom.

    I would like to be proven wrong, but come on, haven't we all been down this road many times before?

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  8. --" The New Greek Finance Minister Who Consider Himself a 'Marxist Libertarian' "--

    Yes. And meet me, the philanthropic and lovable curmudgeon.

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  9. I think it means he's a social democrat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Marxism

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  10. Whatever he says he is, he is in for a rude awakening.

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  11. He has written a lot of books that are full of theories. Now he can prove to the world that he can transform his ideas into working reality. Watching his results should be fun.

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  12. and when it blows up worse on his watch they will blame libertarianism for it.

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