Yanis Varoufakis

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">noam c says yanis and bernie bulwark ~ authoritarian 420</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">719</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Varif party picks up 9, the major anti-aust party he split from lost; golden dawn did npt get 3% but demands recount, same dynamic in other EU where Greens gain but maj left loses?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243);"><li class="hidden-xs" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/8/headlines/greek_snap_elections_hand_victory_to_conservative_party" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Greek Snap Elections Hand Victory to Conservative Party</font></a></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">new party</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">12/18 w/ bernie ~ alt rt org DN</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/global-economy-just-giant-debt-scam-heres-what-financial-elite-doesnt-want-you-know">https://www.alternet.org/global-economy-just-giant-debt-scam-heres-what-financial-elite-doesnt-want-you-know</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ny case individuals are not the problem: Not in the Greek crisis of 2010-15 in which Varoufakis briefly played a starring role, not in the tide of right-wing nationalism that threatens to tear Europe apart, and not in the Trumpified political climate of the United States. The problem is systematic, not a question of the wrong people being in charge.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Varoufakis argues that the entire Western economy has become a massive con game, on a scale thousands or millions of times larger than anything Bernie Madoff could have imagined. Furthermore, in his telling, it’s a con game run by intelligent and not necessarily malevolent people who understand perfectly well that the whole enterprise is a fraud that’s bound to come crashing down eventually. He says he knows that to be true because <em>those people told him so</em>, in the kinds of closed-door meetings where the uppermost level of the managerial caste discuss such things. That’s where the “Greek tragedy” enters the Greek tragedy: Those who supposedly control the system have instead become its prisoners. Or to put it another way, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If anything, Varoufakis can’t resist the human drama. When I asked him whether that was a specifically Greek failing, he laughed but did not deny it. In person he doesn’t seem bitter or angry in the slightest, and looks as if he had been sent over by a casting director to play the role of a worldly European intellectual. He’s handsome, stylish and self-deprecating, and speaks English with almost no accent. (He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Essex and has spent much of his career teaching at universities in Britain, Australia and the U.S.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He depicts powerful insiders whom many progressives would be inclined to view as duplicitous villains, like Summers or International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, in almost sympathetic terms. His title refers to an infamous remark by Lagarde during the final stages of the Greek crisis in June 2015, when she appeared to dismiss the left-wing government Varoufakis represented as children: “The key emergency is to restore the dialogue with adults in the room.” Despite that obvious insult, Varoufakis says he got along well with Lagarde personally.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s neither fair nor accurate, Varoufakis told me during our Salon Talks conversation last fall, to depict such people as scheming masterminds of the neoliberal economy, pulling the strings from atop capitalism’s equivalent of Mount Olympus. “What I experienced was people who were neither good nor bad trying to do their best under circumstances not of their own choosing,” he said, “and then using neoliberal narratives in order to justify themselves, ex post facto. The question is, if they were not in control, if they were powerful and at the same time powerless, what on Earth is going on? Who is running the shop?”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Varoufakis says, the answer to that question is shrouded in deliberate mystery. He was among the leaders of what he calls a “prison break,” the Greek people’s short-lived attempt to escape from the crushing cycle of debt and fiscal austerity that had starved their welfare state and nearly destroyed their society. A few weeks after Lagarde’s “adults in the room” comment, the revolt was over: Varoufakis’ Syriza party capitulated to the demands of the IMF and the European Central Bank — which it had specifically promised not to do — and he resigned as finance minister.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Varoufakis argues that what happened in Greece is happening to us all, on a different scale, and that it was never about one irresponsible little country whose government spent too much money and whose citizens wanted too much free stuff. It’s a long and complicated story about how the world really works, and about the false narratives that get spun in public to conceal that. I encourage you to watch our entire conversation, embedded below — and even more so, to read “Adults in the Room.” Rather than publishing the entire transcript here, I thought it might be more helpful to summarize the main points.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">berk talk 5/18</font></p><p><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-may-23-2018/" class="entry-title h4" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 12.5px; margin-bottom: 12.5px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Fund Drive Special: Economics and the Contradictions of Capitalist Democracy</font></a></p><div class="content text-gray small" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12.5px;" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Marxist economist Yanis Varoufakis took on the leaders of neoliberal capitalism, in a high-stakes battle for the well-being of the Greek people. The former Minister of Finance for Greece spoke last week in Berkeley. In his talk, he discussed the violence necessary for the emergence of capitalism and reflected on the dim view he …</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-may-23-2018/">https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-may-23-2018/</a></font></p><p style="" /></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">5/21/18 audio excerpt fundraiser  </font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><a href="https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=285763" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=285763</a></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-may-21-2018/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-may-21-2018/</font></a></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">talking to my dtr about cap'lism</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adult in the rm bk</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 yo daughter q inequality --> trepworten gnawing Q</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">// GGS, agric revo/civ --> owning land (~ =)</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">surplus to fed army/cops to enforce law/protect surplus</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[prey to god to ensure harvest?] [priest oversee food supply/acc't --> writing ?]</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">birth of POWER OVER: hard power army and arms makers</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">soft power language/writing/ acctiong/propaganda [mandate of heaven/divine right of kings]</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abo aus have soph undrstanding of weatgher/environ /sci?</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mkt vs mkt society (cap'lism)</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Homer Illiad not much fighting, but they land and farm, then negotiate over spoils.</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in mkt, labor, land and cap'l are NOT commodities, tho trade route reached lebannon</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Spanish silver boost wool mkt, trade for spice and jap swords] --> Enclosure --> homeless --> working class</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">steam --> factory UInd Revo [frankenstein. matrix?]</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in feudal sys: sherriff takes a cit for landlord, who sell for $</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">after enclosure,<b> LL does not want to be an entre</b>, so sub-contracts an ex-peasant to rent his land, who hires some help, all all need to live until harvest, so LL lends $/DEBT</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--> Prot work ethic?!</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bank vault n eur mtn town jeweler myth vault; actually black magic, conjures $ from thin air: arm reaches into the future;</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">when banker can extract? enough $ from future, all good but fail --> crash? [loss of faith?]</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bank can conjure b/c they are at nexus?  GS is black magic plus math/computers: "synthetic" CDS they knew wd fail</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With financialization [4 horse] too big to fail, thus we must bail thus no risk, thus <b>not actual entrepreneur</b></font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">production/economy --> political pwr? --> financial power</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to understand gk bebt crisis, am and german treas sec Ss lear or McB or Othello: deluded that they have power? (duty?) but actually powerless [what is gk say no?]</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--> authoritarian incompetence</font></div><div class="initial" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.3; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GS --> BO and DJT</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</font></p>

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<div><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/behind-the-news-december-21-2017/"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" color="#000000">https://kpfa.org/episode/behind-the-news-december-21-2017/</font></a></div>

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<h2 class="entry-title v-top-0 h4" style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 12.5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Behind the News – December 21, 2017</font></h2>

<p class="vcard author mono-serif text-uppercase" style=" margin: 0px 0px 12.5px; box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.05em; line-height: 1.2;"><a href="https://kpfa.org/program/behind-the-news/" class="program-title url fn n" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text-primary" style=" box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">BEHIND THE NEWS</font></span></a></p>

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<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 12.5px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.</font></p>

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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">threat farafakis, 1/3 seats?</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In Puerto Rico’s Highlands, Hurricane Maria Has Exploded Fault Lines of Poverty & Austerity; Yanis Varoufakis on Global Capitalism & How Trump’s Tax Plan is Class War Against the Poor; Economist Yanis Varoufakis: Puerto Ricans Deserve an Escape from “Permanent Debt Prison”; Greek Economist Yanis Varoufakis on Nazi Resurgence in Europe & Why ”ISIS Loves Donald Trump.”</font></div>

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<div><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/hurricane-maria-exploded-fault-lines-poverty-austerity-2/" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://kpfa.org/episode/hurricane-maria-exploded-fault-lines-poverty-austerity-2/</font></a></div>

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