«Ελληνική κρίση: Γιατί δεν υπάρχει κάτι τέτοιο (και πώς μπορεί να αντιμετωπιστεί)» ...
(...)
Greece has already undergone the greatest fiscal squeeze ever attempted anywhere.
It is now being fiscally waterboarded to accept new measures that everyone knows will drive our economy further into the ground and guarantee that our partners will never get their money back.
So, why is Europe doing this? Because the alternative would be for its elites to admit that the Eurozone was built upon flimsy foundations.
(...)
Πρωτοφανή επιτυχία από πλευράς συμμετοχής κόσμου για εκδηλώσεις της Ελληνικής Ορθόδοξης Κοινότητας Μελβούρνης και Βικτώριας είχε η διάλεξη με θέμα «Ελληνική κρίση: Γιατί δεν υπάρχει κάτι τέτοιο (και πώς μπορεί να αντιμετωπιστεί)», που έδωσε τη Δευτέρα το βράδυ, 15 Οκτωβρίου, στη Μελβούρνη, ο διεθνούς φήμης οικονομολόγος, καθηγητής Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης.
Περισσότερα από 270 άτομα κατέκλυσαν τον τρίτο όροφο της Κοινότητας για να παρακολουθήσουν την άκρως ενδιαφέρουσα διάλεξη, ενώ αρκετοί άλλοι υποχρεώθηκαν να αποχωρήσουν. Η μεγάλη συμμετοχή κόσμου αντανακλά και το μέγιστο ενδιαφέρον της ομογένειας για την κρίση στην Ελλάδα.
«Δεν υπάρχει ελληνική κρίση, αλλά ευρωπαϊκή κρίση,» τόνισε ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης, προσθέτοντας ότι λύση θα έρθει μόνο όταν αποφασίσει η Γερμανία τι θέλει να κάνει: «Να μείνει ή βγει από το ευρώ!»
Η διάλεξη διοργανώθηκε από την Κοινότητα σε συνεργασία με το Research Unit for Public Culture του πανεπιστημίου της Μελβούρνης.
Τον καθηγητή Βαρουφάκη καλωσόρισε ο πρόεδρος της Κοινότητας Βασίλης Παπαστεργιάδης, λέγοντας ότι είναι σημαντικό ότι μια προσωπικότητα σαν τον καθ. Βαρουφάκη βρίσκεται στην Κοινότητα, αλλά και η μεγάλη παρουσία κόσμου στην τελευταία εκδήλωση στο κοινοτικό κτίριο, πριν κατεδαφιστεί για την ανέγερση του πολυώροφου κτιρίου που θα στεγάσει το Ελληνικό Πολιτιστικό Κέντρο.
Με τη σειρά του ο διευθυντής του Research Unit for Public Culture καθηγητής Νίκος Παπαστεργιάδης προλόγισε τον καθ. Βαρουφάκη υπογραμμίζοντας επίσης ότι πρόκειται για μια σημαντική προσωπικότητα με διεθνή προβολή στο χώρο της πολιτικής και της οικονομίας.
Ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης χαιρετώντας το κοινό, δήλωσε πως έχει ζήσει 12 χρόνια στην Αυστραλία και γνωρίζει από πρώτο χέρι τα προβλήματα της ομογένειας, το ενδιαφέρον όλων για την Ελλάδα, αλλά και την «υπεροψία» και «αλαζονεία» με την οποία αντιμετώπιζαν διάφοροι Ελληνες πολιτικοί τους ομογενείς όταν έρχονταν στην Αυστραλία.
Αναπτύσσοντας τη θέση του ότι δεν υπάρχει ελληνική κρίση, αλλά ευρωπαϊκή, ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης ανέφερε ως παράδειγμα την ύφεση του ’30 και το γεγονός ότι δεν αντιμετωπίστηκε ως ειδική κρίση της Τασμάνιας στην Αυστραλία ή του Οχάιο στις ΗΠΑ.
«Η Ελλάδα βρίσκεται αντιμέτωπη με μια τρομακτική καταστροφή και με τους Ελληνες να υποφέρουν φοβερά,» τόνισε και μάλιστα για μια κατάσταση στην ευρωζώνη που δεν ευθύνονται μόνο αυτοί. «Για παράδειγμα, η κρίση του 1974 με τη χούντα ήταν ελληνική κρίση» είπε, «αλλά όχι η σημερινή».
Στη συνέχεια ανέλυσε πώς έχει δημιουργηθεί η κρίση στην Ευρώπη και ιδιαίτερα σε συγκεκριμένες χώρες. Χαρακτήρισε δε τα μέτρα που εφαρμόζονται στην Ελλάδα ως «αποτυχημένα». "Παρόλα αυτά συνεχίζουν να τα εφαρμόζουν και ιδιαίτερα όταν ακόμα και οι δανειστές και οι εκπρόσωποί τους ξέρουν ότι δεν θα έχουν κανένα θετικό αποτέλεσμα," τόνισε.
Οπως είπε, χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα είναι η Ιρλανδία, την οποία όλοι και ιδιαίτερα η Γερμανία, την επαινούσαν ως την "καλή" χώρα που εφαρμόζει κατά γράμμα τα μέτρα λιτότητας που της επιβάλλονταν.
«Ποιο το αποτέλεσμα της ‘καλής’ αυτής στάσης», ρώτησε ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης, δίνοντας ταυτόχρονα και την απάντηση: «Σήμερα η Ιρλανδία, η καλή, βρίσκεται χρεωκοπημένη στην ίδια θέση με την Ελλάδα».
Ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης υπογράμμισε πως η Ελλάδα ως μικρή χώρα στην Ευρώπη, όπως και η Τασμάνια ως μικρή Πολιτεία της Αυστραλίας, είχαν πάντα οικονομικά προβλήματα. «Ακούσατε ποτέ να ζητούν την αποπομπή της Τασμάνιας από την Ομοσπονδία της Αυστραλίας ή να ζητούν να επιβληθούν μέτρα λιτότητας στους κατοίκους της;» ρώτησε. «Ποτέ! Τότε γιατί η κρίση στην Ελλάδα να την οδηγήσει έξω από την ευρωζώνη;»
Χαρακτηριστικό ήταν το σχολιό του ότι η κρίση στην ευρωζώνη και τα προβλήματα που αντιμετωπίζει είναι αποτέλεσμα της "ανόητης" πολιτικής της και του τρόπου με τον οποίο έχει ιδρυθεί, χωρίς γερές βάσεις και θεμέλια, επισημαίνοντας πως «αν το ευρώ καταρρεύσει θα καταποντίσει την παγκόσμια οικονομία».
Ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης ανέφερε ότι ο συνάδελφός του οικονομολόγος και υπουργός Οικονομικών Γιάννης Στουρνάρας «διαπραγματεύεται με την τρόικα περικοπές και μέτρα τα οποία τόσο ο ίδιος όσο και οι εκπρόσωποι της τρόικας ξέρουν ότι θα χειροτερέψουν την κατάσταση και ότι δεν θα έχουν κανένα αποτέλεσμα».
«Αν σκοτώσεις την αγελάδα που παράγει το γάλα, δεν θα υπάρχει γάλα,» τόνισε χαρακτηριστικά υπογραμμίζοντας τις αρνητικές επιπτώσεις που έχουν στην ελληνική κοινωνία και οικονομία τα μέτρα.
Ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης δήλωσε ότι τόσο η Ελλάδα όσο και οι άλλες χώρες της Νότιας Ευρώπης βρίσκονται στη σημερινή κατάσταση διότι στη Γερμανία αυτοί που αποφασίζουν διαφωνούν αν μείνουν ή αν βγουν από το ευρώ.
«Για να λυθεί η κρίση θα πρέπει να αποφασίσει η Γερμανία τι θέλει να κάνει τελικά,» είπε.
Σύμφωνα με τον καθ. Βαρουφάκη η ενoποίηση της Ευρώπης γίνεται με λανθασμένο τρόπο. «Η ομοσπονδοποίηση θα πρέπει να γίνεται φυσιολογικά και ομαλά,» είπε. Εδώ υπάρχουν ακόμα διαφωνίες και για τα σχέδια που θα τυπώνονται στα χαρτονομίσματα του ευρώ. «Ακόμα και τα σχέδια στο ευρώ είναι φανταστικά, καθώς δεν υπήρξε συμφωνία μεταξύ των χωρών μελών ποιές γέφυρες ή κτίρια θα τυπωθούν σε αυτά,» τόνισε.
Απαντώντας σε πλήθος ερωτήσεων του κοινού, ανέφερε μεταξύ άλλων πως για να αντιμετωπισθεί η κρίση στην ευρωζώνη θα πρέπει να δημιουργηθεί ένα κεντρικό τραπεζικό σύστημα και όχι να υπάρχει διαφορετικό σε κάθε χώρα μέλος, η Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα (ΕΚΤ) να ελέγχει και διαχειρίζεται τα χρέη των κρατών μελών – αν δεν μπορούν να τα πληρώσουν όπως η Ελλάδα σήμερα κάτι θα πρέπει να γίνει, καθώς επίσης να δημιουργηθούν και προγράμματα επενδύσεων σε όλες τις χώρες της ευρωζώνης μέσω της ΕΚΤ.
Αναφέρθηκε χαρακτηριστικά, όπως πληροφορήθηκε το thebest.gr, σε σχέδιο που έχει η ΕΚΤ για τη δημιουργία γραμμής υψηλής ταχύτητας τρένων που θα ενώνει την Πάτρα με το Μόναχο μέσω Αθήνας, Θεσσαλονίκης και Βιέννης, αλλά δεν προχωρά επειδή το καταστατικό της ΕΚΤ προβλέπει τέτοιες επενδύσεις μόνον όταν κάθε χώρα-μέλος καλύψει μέρος του κόστους που της αναλογεί. «Πώς η Ελλάδα σήμερα ή άλλες χώρες των Βαλκανίων που είναι σε ύφεση θα μπορέσουν να χρηματοδοτήσουν ένα τέτοιο έργο,» τόνισε ο καθ. Βαρουφάκης.
(...)
ΤΟ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΡΤΗΣΕΩΣ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΣΕΛΙΔΑ:
http://www.thebest.gr/news/index/viewStory/154598
Σ Χ Ε Τ Ι Κ Α
Last Tuesday, at the CPA Annual Conference in Melbourne, I was invited to debate Norman Lamont, the UK’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (under John Major’s government), on the Euro Crisis. The event was closed to the public (invitation only) and thus it was not possible offer a video link. But now here is the text of my intervention (that preceded the discussion). You can also hear my spiel by clicking here: Audio (It is a recording I made using my phone – except for the first moments, the audio quality is rather good).
In summary, Lord Lamont and I agreed entirely on our diagnosis of the crisis: The Eurozone was built on foundations that (a) could not sustain a large shock and (b) made a large shock more likely, if not inevitable. Where we disagreed sharply was on what should now happen. He argued in favour of the Eurozone’s dissolution. I argued that a dissolution would cause untold hardship on the global economy, hardship that is utterly avoidable.
Continue reading for the text of my presentation:
MELBOURNE ADDRESS – CPA,
Tuesday 16th October 2012
1.
INTRODUCTION – Why am I here?
Thank you Robert. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is a great honour to be in your midst today. Still, I cannot but wonder: Why am I here today? Is it because of my work on the philosophical foundations of game theory? Or for my book on the global crisis?
Let’s be honest. It is because the Euro Crisis has promoted me from a run of the mill academic to a… renowned Greek economist. A most dubious promotion. But such is this Crisis that the marginal, all of a sudden, acquires undeserved discursive power and is propelled into the centre of things.
Take my country, Greece. At the margins of Europe’s map and economy for centuries, Greece has been in the global headlines for three years. This is quite absurd.
If a crisis in the Northern Territory had the capacity to threaten with disintegration the Australian Commonwealth, the problem would not be with the Northern Territory. Something would have been profoundly remiss with Australian capitalism!
Catherine the Great once said that: “if you can’t be a good example, you will have to be a horrible warning.”
This is, ladies and gentlemen, my task this fine morning: a Greek bearing not gifts but a hideous warning.
2.
THIS IS OUR GREAT DEPRESSION – OUR GLOBAL WINTER OF DISCONTENT
When the GFC struck in 2008, we entered not some recession we had to have but our generation’s Global Winter of Discontent, our very own Postmodern Great Depression.
It may not feel like a Depression in the streets of Melbourne today but scratch the surface anywhere on the planet and what you will find is justified uncertainty, legitimate insecurity and potential insolvency.
Can we expect the combined quantitative easing of our Central Banks to help? At the very best it will provide palliative care to a world in need of a cure.
A cure for what? A cure for what I term the Twin Peaks Problem that follows large financial crashes like those of 1929 and 2008:
Can we find such a solution? Of course we can. We did so twice since WW2. Once in 1944 and then again in the 1970s. Both involved a mechanism for recycling global surpluses in the form of productive investment into the deficit regions and sectors.
If our world is now in a state of pronounced bewilderment it is because no replacement has been found for the surplus recycling mechanism which died with the GFC in 2008, at the time the US lost its capacity to use its own deficits in order to recycle other people’s surpluses.
3.
EUROPE’S CRISIS AS THE LABORATORY OF THE FUTURE
Which brings me to the Eurozone. It was built on the presumption that America’s recycling of others’ surpluses would continue to provide adequate demand for net exporters like Germany. Thus no endogenous surplus recycling mechanism was built into the Eurozone.
For 8 years the Eurozone resembled a fine riverboat on a calm Ocean. But when America’s recycling powers suddenly gave way, the seas turned stormy and the pretty European riverboat began to take water in. Thus our modern Greco-European tragedy began.
4.
WATERBOARDING GREECE
Almost in a bid to defy my hosts I have said nothing so far about Greece. The reason is that there is little to say. Greece was the flimsiest, most corrupt, least entrepreneurial part of the Eurozone. These are the reasons why the domino effect started there. But it is not the cause of the domino effect!
Nonetheless, Greece:
It is now being fiscally waterboarded to accept new measures that everyone knows will drive our economy further into the ground and guarantee that our partners will never get their money back.
So, why is Europe doing this? Because the alternative would be for its elites to admit that the Eurozone was built upon flimsy foundations.
5.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE EURO:
It’s the politics stupid
In her final Parliamentary speech as Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher famously said about the Eurozone:
“It’s all politics. Who controls interest rates is political. A single currency is about the politics of Europe.”
Hear, hear, I say. (You know that a crisis is deep when a leftwing Greek economist is missing Margaret Thatcher!)
Where Mrs Thatcher was wrong was in her belief that Europe’s elites had federation on some secret agenda.
Exhibit A that they do not have such an agenda is the current banking union debacle: Everyone knows a banking union is a prerequisite for stopping Italy’s and Spain’s quick march into the Grecian Vortex. And yet Germany is single-mindedly working to wreck in practice the banking union which it agreed to in June.
No, ladies and gentlemen, all talk of a federal agenda is bogus. As the Cambridge economist Nicholas Kaldor had predicted in the 1970s, an attempt to create a flimsy currency union would be a first step not toward a Federal Europe but toward Europe’s deconstruction.
6.
CONCLUSION
So, what should we do?
Europe is now the laboratory of our global future. We should never have created this Euro. But given that we have, Europe has a moral responsibility to itself, and to the rest of the world, to fix it. Without the Treaty changes, fiscal pacts, or Ponzi Austerity programs that defy basic economic logic.
Technically we can achieve this in weeks. But, as Mrs Thatcher, might have said today, “It’s the politics stupid!”
If we fail, Europe will have inflicted mass pain on the rest of the planet for a third time in a century. And then you will all become Greeks too – and not in the benign sense of sharing a love for Homer, Sophocles and Thucydides.
Varoufakis Yanis
ΤΟ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΣΕΛΙΔΑ:
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/10/18/2839/
Σ Χ Ε Τ Ι Κ Α
The Euro Crisis as a spectacular political failure.
Last Tuesday, at the CPA Annual Conference in Melbourne, I was invited to debate Norman Lamont, the UK’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (under John Major’s government), on the Euro Crisis. The event was closed to the public (invitation only) and thus it was not possible offer a video link. But now here is the text of my intervention (that preceded the discussion). You can also hear my spiel by clicking here: Audio (It is a recording I made using my phone – except for the first moments, the audio quality is rather good).
In summary, Lord Lamont and I agreed entirely on our diagnosis of the crisis: The Eurozone was built on foundations that (a) could not sustain a large shock and (b) made a large shock more likely, if not inevitable. Where we disagreed sharply was on what should now happen. He argued in favour of the Eurozone’s dissolution. I argued that a dissolution would cause untold hardship on the global economy, hardship that is utterly avoidable.
Continue reading for the text of my presentation:
MELBOURNE ADDRESS – CPA,
Tuesday 16th October 2012
1.
INTRODUCTION – Why am I here?
Thank you Robert. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is a great honour to be in your midst today. Still, I cannot but wonder: Why am I here today? Is it because of my work on the philosophical foundations of game theory? Or for my book on the global crisis?
Let’s be honest. It is because the Euro Crisis has promoted me from a run of the mill academic to a… renowned Greek economist. A most dubious promotion. But such is this Crisis that the marginal, all of a sudden, acquires undeserved discursive power and is propelled into the centre of things.
Take my country, Greece. At the margins of Europe’s map and economy for centuries, Greece has been in the global headlines for three years. This is quite absurd.
If a crisis in the Northern Territory had the capacity to threaten with disintegration the Australian Commonwealth, the problem would not be with the Northern Territory. Something would have been profoundly remiss with Australian capitalism!
Catherine the Great once said that: “if you can’t be a good example, you will have to be a horrible warning.”
This is, ladies and gentlemen, my task this fine morning: a Greek bearing not gifts but a hideous warning.
2.
THIS IS OUR GREAT DEPRESSION – OUR GLOBAL WINTER OF DISCONTENT
When the GFC struck in 2008, we entered not some recession we had to have but our generation’s Global Winter of Discontent, our very own Postmodern Great Depression.
It may not feel like a Depression in the streets of Melbourne today but scratch the surface anywhere on the planet and what you will find is justified uncertainty, legitimate insecurity and potential insolvency.
Can we expect the combined quantitative easing of our Central Banks to help? At the very best it will provide palliative care to a world in need of a cure.
A cure for what? A cure for what I term the Twin Peaks Problem that follows large financial crashes like those of 1929 and 2008:
- The first peak that emerged is made up of massive unserviceable debtsand irretrievable banking losses.
- A second peak consists of equally large idle savings, too terrified to fund productive medium term investments.
Can we find such a solution? Of course we can. We did so twice since WW2. Once in 1944 and then again in the 1970s. Both involved a mechanism for recycling global surpluses in the form of productive investment into the deficit regions and sectors.
If our world is now in a state of pronounced bewilderment it is because no replacement has been found for the surplus recycling mechanism which died with the GFC in 2008, at the time the US lost its capacity to use its own deficits in order to recycle other people’s surpluses.
3.
EUROPE’S CRISIS AS THE LABORATORY OF THE FUTURE
Which brings me to the Eurozone. It was built on the presumption that America’s recycling of others’ surpluses would continue to provide adequate demand for net exporters like Germany. Thus no endogenous surplus recycling mechanism was built into the Eurozone.
For 8 years the Eurozone resembled a fine riverboat on a calm Ocean. But when America’s recycling powers suddenly gave way, the seas turned stormy and the pretty European riverboat began to take water in. Thus our modern Greco-European tragedy began.
- Instead of treating our systemic Euro Crisis systematically, the Core started pointing moralising fingers at the Periphery
- Europe concentrated on lending more money to the insolvent states to lend to their insolvent banks on condition of harsh austerity that shrinks the national income from which the loans should be repaid
- Bailouts are being funded by CDO-like bonds that contain within them the domino dynamic which causes more European banks and states to fail sequentially.
4.
WATERBOARDING GREECE
Almost in a bid to defy my hosts I have said nothing so far about Greece. The reason is that there is little to say. Greece was the flimsiest, most corrupt, least entrepreneurial part of the Eurozone. These are the reasons why the domino effect started there. But it is not the cause of the domino effect!
Nonetheless, Greece:
- Reminds us of how quickly a recession can turn into a depression
- Of Britain’s and Australia’s predicament between the world wars, when they sought to stay within the Gold Standard by imposing self-defeating austerity on themselves
- It also reminds us that when a financial crisis cripples an ill designed multinational currency union, the first thing that happens is a disintegration in the common currency; and very soon after that, we end up with real Nazis in Parliament.
It is now being fiscally waterboarded to accept new measures that everyone knows will drive our economy further into the ground and guarantee that our partners will never get their money back.
So, why is Europe doing this? Because the alternative would be for its elites to admit that the Eurozone was built upon flimsy foundations.
5.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE EURO:
It’s the politics stupid
In her final Parliamentary speech as Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher famously said about the Eurozone:
“It’s all politics. Who controls interest rates is political. A single currency is about the politics of Europe.”
Hear, hear, I say. (You know that a crisis is deep when a leftwing Greek economist is missing Margaret Thatcher!)
Where Mrs Thatcher was wrong was in her belief that Europe’s elites had federation on some secret agenda.
Exhibit A that they do not have such an agenda is the current banking union debacle: Everyone knows a banking union is a prerequisite for stopping Italy’s and Spain’s quick march into the Grecian Vortex. And yet Germany is single-mindedly working to wreck in practice the banking union which it agreed to in June.
No, ladies and gentlemen, all talk of a federal agenda is bogus. As the Cambridge economist Nicholas Kaldor had predicted in the 1970s, an attempt to create a flimsy currency union would be a first step not toward a Federal Europe but toward Europe’s deconstruction.
6.
CONCLUSION
So, what should we do?
Europe is now the laboratory of our global future. We should never have created this Euro. But given that we have, Europe has a moral responsibility to itself, and to the rest of the world, to fix it. Without the Treaty changes, fiscal pacts, or Ponzi Austerity programs that defy basic economic logic.
Technically we can achieve this in weeks. But, as Mrs Thatcher, might have said today, “It’s the politics stupid!”
If we fail, Europe will have inflicted mass pain on the rest of the planet for a third time in a century. And then you will all become Greeks too – and not in the benign sense of sharing a love for Homer, Sophocles and Thucydides.
Varoufakis Yanis
ΤΟ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΣΕΛΙΔΑ:
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/10/18/2839/