Yanis Varoufakis on Larry Summers
More Larry Summers content. with him much in the news as a Biden adviser. From Yanis Varoufakis’s Adults in the Room, pp. 21–24: Determined to delay the serious business ahead of us a few moments more, I signalled to the bartender for a whiskey of my own and said, ‘Before you tell me about my “mistake”, let me say, Larry, how important your messages of support and advice have been in the past weeks. I am truly grateful. Especially as for years I have been referring to you as the Prince of… Read More
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): April 16, 2020 Yanis Varoufakis talks about life under COVID-19, the economic crisis, vultures stripping Greece, and democratizing the EU (includes bonus audio clip of Jim Cramer recalling his Trotskyist past)
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): July 11, 2019 [back after holiday break] David Adler, policy director at DiEM25, on Syriza’s loss in Greece (Guardian article here) • Joel Whitney, author of this article, on Pablo Neruda and his flight from the CIA
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): December 21, 2017 DH on bitcoin • Yanis Varoufakis ties up some loose ends on Adults in the Room, and then discusses the need for a progressive internationalism
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): October 12, 2017 Yanis Varoufakis on his new book, Adults in the Room, the story of his surreal negotiations with Greece’s creditors
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Just added to my radio archive: March 9, 2017 Yanis Varoufakis back on BtN for the first time in over two years! He discusses the interminable eurocrisis, austerity, Brexit, the nationalist international (Trump, Le Pen, etc.), and DiEM25, among other things. The full Varoufakis–Ali–et al. debate is here. The version of this show that ran on KPFA was truncated because the station is fundraising. Please donate and keep this worthy enterprise going. If you do, please mention Behind the News!
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Finally, after an unpardonable delay, four shows freshly uploaded to my radio archive: August 13, 2015 William Darity on discrimination, a job guarantee, and baby bonds • R.L. Stephens II, founding editor of Orchestrated Pulse and author of this essay, talks about Black Lives Matter and the creation of a leadership class August 6, 2015 [vacation encore] Ian Bone, author of Bash the Rich, on anarchism (first broadcast March 2007) • Bethany Moreton, author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart, on Christian free enterprise and the Behemoth of Bentonville July 23, 2015 James Galbraith and Leo Panitch (the article that launched a thousand righteous polemics) on Greece July… Read More
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Now up in my radio archive: March 12, 2015 Gene Nichol on North Carolina’s war on poor people and on academic freedom • Eilyanna Kaiser and Brendan Michael Conner, respectively co-editor and contributor to $pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution, on the perils and delights of running a magazine by and for sex workers March 5, 2015 Mark Ames, author of this article, tells us who Boris Nemtsov, the dissident shot on the streets of Moscow last week, was • David Kotz, author of The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal… Read More
Varoufakis: “be prepared to blow the whole thing up”
The radio show I just posted consists of excerpts from five interviews I’ve done since 2008 with the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, who is now the country’s finance minister. Anyone interested in the strategy that Greece might pursue in negotiations with its creditors should listen. The show concludes with Varoufakis describing an aggressive negotiating strategy: [T]o negotiate, to be taken seriously, you have to have a credible threat. You have to be prepared to blow the whole thing up, simply by being intransigent if you’re not taken seriously. So this is my recommendation…. Read More
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Freshly posted to my radio archive, after too long an interval: January 29, 2015 Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek economist who’s appeared on this show 16 times since 2008 discussing mainly the Eurocrisis, is now the finance minister of Greece. Here are excerpts from 5 of those interviews. At the very end of this episode, he discusses what Greece’s strategy towards its creditors should be. Tough words, worth checking out. [See next post for an incendiary excerpt.] January 22, 2015 Priyamvada Gopal, author of this article, on the curious relationship of freedom and unfreedom in Western… Read More
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Just added to my radio archive: December 4, 2014 Anatol Lieven of Georgetown U–Qatar (and author of this) on Hillary the Hawk • Alex Vitale, author of City of Disorder, on Ferguson in the context of American policing November 27, 2014 Lucia Green-Weiskel on the U.S.–China climate quasi-deal • Steven Teles talks about Hillary, kludgeocracy, and neoliberalism. November 20, 2014 Yanis Varoufakis on the eurocrisis • Howie Hawkins, Green candidate for NYS governor, on the party’s future November 13, 2014 Detroit bankruptcy exit special: Shea Howell of Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, offers an activist perspective, and Wallace Turbeville (see writings here) runs the numbers
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Just uploaded to my radio archives: March 28, 2013 Terry Kupers on the psychological effects of prison • Haley Sweetland Edwards, author of this article, how Wall Street took over Dodd-Frank March 21, 2013 Yanis Varoufakis on the economies of Australia, Cyprus, and Greece • Jonathan Westin of Fast Food Forward on organizing fast food workers in NYC
Radio commentary, November 27, 2010
Eurocrisis: bondholders need a haircut • how Ireland helps Google pay almost no taxes • Germany must screw periphery because it’s screwed its own workers All Eurocrisis today. I never thought I’d be saying this, but it must be conceded that Angela Merkel has a point or two. Not the way the German chancellor and many of her fellow Germans want to drive Greece, Ireland, and the other troubled countries on the periphery of Europe through the austerity wringer. Not that. But this: Merkel thinks that bondholders should take a hit. And… Read More
Posted on November 26, 2011 by Doug Henwood
Radio commentary, November 26, 2011
eurocrisis infecting core The European situation spun more deeply into crisis this week. Interest rates on 10-year Italian government bonds crossed the spooky 7% barrier, yielding 5 points more than comparable German bonds. A year ago, Italian bonds yielded 4.3%, less than 2 points above German rates. In the jargon of the markets, this blowout in Italian spreads is a sign of investor panic. On paper, Italy shouldn’t be so bad off. Its budget is in decent shape, and Italians have plenty of domestic savings, more than enough to cover the government’s financing… Read More