At around 15'40", Varoufakis says that Bretton Woods collapsed in 1971. I'm not enough of an economist/historian to understand this reference. Is he talking about the dollar going off of the gold standard? If so, why is he equating Bretton Woods with this arrangement (ie the dollar being on the gold standard?)
The Bretton Woods system was a predecessor of the Eurozone (Fixed exchange rate currency). Saying, that in order to have a healthy common monetary union you need to have a federal union first. Otherwise things crashes, as happened to bretton woods and as it’s happening on the eurozone
The Euro is not fixed to anything, but its value floats freely like any other currency. It is "fixed" to Eurozone members in the sense that they can't value/devalue it by themselves.
Comparing the Bretton Woods system to the Eurozone is not a direct comparison
Fixed exchange rate meant as if all countries in Europe would have a fixed exchange rate between them (even if they would use different currencies). Hence the comparison eurozone-Bretton Woods
Controversial in the very least. I also got the impression that he was quite anti-EU with his whole Greece rhetoric during the discussions about another Greek buyout. Maybe I got him wrong..?
How could he not be? The people he was negotiating with to try and save Greece were telling him - look, we know you’re right, but we’re going to completely ignore that fact and institute policy that completely fucks the worst off Greeks.
From the talk he appears everything but anti-EU. If you carefully listen to him, what he aims at is a federal-EU. He also justify the collapse of high-balance-deficit countries with the fact everyone is in the Eurozone. Therefore fuelling the borrow of capital that won’t be repaid, until bankruptcy.
The guy is a jerk. He fucked up in an unprecedented way, his whole negotiation strategy was just a blackmail toward EU-Germany that eventually backfired. In the meantime all his proposals for reforming the public sector were laughable, like the idea of giving cameras to tourists to record tax evading shops.
He may be good at writing books or giving lectures but he was a complete disaster as minister of finance.
Not sure about that. He was trying to get the best deal for Greece, Germany called his bluff and he was left holding the bag, but he had the right intentions. In retrospect he probably should have gone with the Grexit. The Germans would have capitulated, and, had they not, you’d still be better off.
Maybe downvoted because of the language, but the comment is accurate. The guy is a megalomaniac, who negotiated for Greece without ANY skin in the game.
For those who had the misfortune to suffer the consquences of his folly, he is not controversial at all. He is a conceited man-child with very bad manners. There's readily accessible, amble evidence for that by looking at photos of him in various settings, both formal and relaxed. The way he dresses and, more importantly, his body language make it quite plain. His writings and interviews attest to the same. BTW, and to do him full justice, his mathy book on game theory is not bad (though hardly a classic) so he may be somewhat competent as an academic economist.
The man is articulated but nothing of what he says brings anything to my mind. Maybe he's just too smart.. but I can't discern from overenginered pub talk.
I meant a never ending stream of sophisticated ideas and precise data that leads nowhere. I used to watch every interview of the guy[1] and .. I always left the video empty minded.
[1] he seemed to have human values and of course knowledge about the topic
Ok, we're going down a rabbit hole here, but just to clarify, you meant "pub talk" as in the kind of conversation people have at a pub after a few beers? Or "public talk" as in a public speech, as nikofeyn suggested?
i can see "overengineered pub talk" as a specific critique instead of them meaning public. i am probably wrong there. but the point still stands as it's rude and not important to make a mention of their english, especially when it seems what they meant is one of two things, both of which make sense.
http://www.cesifo-group.de/de/ifoHome/events/seminars/Muench...