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Comment by xae | Hacker News Reader

Difficult not to love how he discusses everything with a very different language from traditional politans (or I would say, professional polititians). He sounds true and honest, and by no means a radical inciendary that wants to destroy the EU and the Euro. His political career has been cut short by massive pressure from all sides but he has gained sympathy for Syriza's cause worldwide in a very short time and nonetheless make progress in negotiations despite having everyone against his ideas in economic institutuions.

I'm sure we'll miss Varoufakis and I hope his style - be like a common mortal - permeates politics everywhere.

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Hear, hear.

While Greece have lost this battle, he has shone a light into the murky workings of European politics that I believe will be invaluable and inspiring to future reformers, not to mention the citizens of the EU member states.

I'm just wondering what the heck Greece has done with the some half trillion Euros it's sucked in over the years and which hard-pressed taxpayers across Europe, many with standards of living below that of the average Greek, will now be helping to offset?

> Less than 10% of the bailout money was left to be used by the government for reforming its economy and safeguarding weaker members of society.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/where-did-the-g...

That's completely meaningless nonsense, money is fungible.

Doesn't change the fact that the previous bailout was in practice a bailout of French and German banks and other private bondholders.

Another case of profits being privatized and losses being socialized.

> Only a small fraction of the €240bn (£170bn) total bailout money Greece received in 2010 and 2012 found its way into the government’s coffers to soften the blow of the 2008 financial crash and fund reform programmes.

> Most of the money went to the banks that lent Greece funds before the crash.

They money from the bailouts went to pay debts that Greece owed on pre-2008 loans, and was not available to the Greek government to be used for social or economic restructuring.

I'm not certain at all what your basis for your comment is.

500 000 million spread over 10 million people for 20 years is only 2500 euros per person per year. Assuming a large chunk of this amount was interest then it makes a lot more sense where all the money went.

Well the ECB could just print couple of trillion euro and hang them out divided to each country. We will have a little inflation and that's it. Greece will be debt free and there will be no burdens on the taxpayers.

Actually Greece has a printing press for Euros (apparently you can tell which euro notes are printed in Greece by the serial number). I have been half expecting Greece to solve all its problems by just printing.

They need authorization from ECB and the printer prints only 10 euros.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/return-drachma...

I think if you are going to run the biggest heist in history you are not going to ask permission :)

The Euro notes has codes for both the issuing central bank and the printer facility.

http://www.eurotracer.net/information/notes.php

Me thinks even the Greeks would not have too much problem putting the German code on their new notes. Of course this would be interpreted as a declaration of war by the eu so it would not be wise.

In the early 20th century there was a high-profile case in Portugal, where a forger managed to convice Waterlow and Sons (a currency printer in the UK, since bought by De La Rue and currently one of the Euro printers) to print batches of portuguese notes.

These were, of course, indistinguishable from real notes. The scheme ultimately failed when a mistake caused the printing of duplicate serial numbers already ordered by the state.

I doubt a scheme like this would work today in the slightest. If in an un-digitized world this didn't last long, in today's world it would quickly be discovered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis

This is a bit different in that Greece has control over a real printing press. While it would be unlikely to be kept hidden, it should be possible for the Greek printers to avoid overlapping serials numbers.

In practice they could only start their own “unauthorised” printing if it was kept secret since if it leaked the ECB would just issue new notes. This would likely be highly disruptive to the ECB as it was to Portugal.

Almost all of it was used for dept payments I believe.

Alas, this sort of thing (protect the interests of capital) is pretty normal. In the US, bankers got a bailout and homeowners lost their homes for example.

Of the bailout money, yes. But bear in mind that the bailout money (at least the initial tranche) was to take on debt that had already been spent. It most definitely is not that case that that money was spent on debt re-payments.

It's fair to say that a lot of subsequent additional money was primarily used to cover debt re-payments but that's because the original debt was so large (relative to the Greek economy).

Greece has lost the war. Fortunately the resistance was strong enough against his completely exagerated expectations. Such parties are not normally at the helm neither in US nor Europe. Care to elaborate murky workings?

With my interested bystander hat on, I agree with you.

As someone who has a family interest in Greece being a pleasant place to live and work, it would have been nice if he had been even a tad effective along with it.

Radical incendiaries? I wonder what epithets you'd employ to describe people who have voted against EU treaties (to be told to vote again until they get it right)?

"True and honest"? Are we reading the same article? He sounds like a bitter extremist who doesn't know how to control himself in order to reach a certain goal, but instead like either a petulant child or an autistic person (depending on the day of the week, it seems) can only repeat 'the Greeks voted for no extra cuts yet stay in the Euro so we should get it' (no shit? and I'd like a pony) and 'my economics paper says xyz, I want you to reply to each point I made'. Uh no buddy, that's not how the world works.

You sound pretty bitter yourself.

I find it strangely Kafkaesque the way each country has their own vested interests in destroying Greece. We know absolutely that they will not pay this money back (and as a price Europe is destroying their country and seizing assets, a coup of kinds).

I think they should go bankrupt - and the banks will be falling over themselves to lend them money again! It's amazing that 90% of the Greek bailout money went to the Banks and that they are no longer exposed to the risks that they made, instead tax payers are.

It really feels as if the banks should be made to pay for making such unstable, non repayable depts? Just a thought.

Well, if the Greeks would agree with your idea, they'd do it, don't you think? And if they'd really think they'd be better off leaving the Euro, they would, no? Instead, they are willing to accept drastic measures, and even Varoufakis has all eyes set on staying in the Euro zone, even if only in a farcical way (his 'we'll issue Euro-denominated bonds ourselves even if the ECB cuts us out' fantasy).

The way I see it, they want to stay in the Euro no matter what. Everybody saying 'leave the Euro' seems to know better for them than they do?

The problem is that while Greece is better off leaving the Euro, individual Greeks that already have savings would be worse off if their savings were converted to drachmas.

Seeing as how Syriza was elected by a populist movement, they could just as easily be deposed by the same populism, and a lot of people (especially those who are already retired or nearing retirement age) would be upset if they lost a large chunk of their savings.

But yes, economically, the drachma is better for Greece. Especially for younger Greeks who have little to no savings, and wouldn't be hurt by a devaluing currency, but would stand to gain from increased employment.

Can't decide if you're more insulting to those who are autistic, to those who believe in democracy, or to those who are in academia...

Yanis Varoufakis' problem is that he was playing a different game. He was trying to be an economist and do the right thing for Greece when the Eurogroup was playing politics and trying to punish Greece. They never were interested in economics or a prosperous Greece, only in maintaining the power structure across Europe.

Absolutely my reading of the situation too. I hear these two sides of the argument "Greece is a petulant and lazy bad state, hit them" and the one I subscribe to "let's forgive Greece, it was on the banks to lend stupid amounts of money to them".

Well I have autistic tendencies and I'm an academic; and I do believe in democracy although not so much the mob rule variety; so 'it takes one to know one' is rather apt here...

I think you're missing a tremendous amount of context in this observation. Varoufakis is speaking a close approximation of the truth in this situation. The point is that the Euro as a union is an economic disaster: Capitulating to the German electorate because they're bigger/richer is not much of a union, it's hegemony.

The USA doesn't let Alabama and Arkansas rot if Californians would prefer it that way, it has automatic transfers and laws in place to help its members out. Yes we are a tighter Union politically, but that's the aspiration of the EU and Euro, and they've just proven they really would prefer a regional hegemony than a group of political equals.

a) there is no 'capitulating to the German electorate'; b) the 'aspiration' of the EU is not to become a United States of Europe. I can't be bothered to go into the details, because this is EU law 101, but just the suggestion that European countries would somehow aspire to a federal model is laughable and shows 0 knowledge of the history and institutions of the EU.

And this is the illusion that's at the heart of The EU, that EU law can somehow contort social and economic systems to work in contradictory ways. It's a confederation - all members have given up some sovereignty. Except a badly design currency union and a hegemonic leadership out of Germany doesn't make economic sense when crises hit.

Please don't use inflammatory sarcasm when commenting on HN, especially when the topic is inflammatory to begin with.

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