Yanis Varoufakis with Daniel Denvir

This event was a partnership between Lannan Foundation and Haymarket Books. Audio and video have been edited to highlight the guest speakers.
Learn more: lannan.org/events/yanis-varou...

[@darea.3338]

For me, Yanis is the best economist today. Always glad, when I have a chance to listen to him.

[@Natallou55]

He is very engaging

[@fimanu]

Yanis is able to explain fantastically complex phenomena to us commoners in a wonderful and engaging way, I can listen to you for hours Yanis; clear, clean, contextualised, exemplified descriptions of reality. Every now and then I think: what the hell is going on? And I just know it's time to listen to some Yanis again. Thank you, please look after urself, we need u to stick around and help us analyse the present in the near future, it changes too bloody fast.

[@noIMspartacus2]

Well you're not going to learn about "social or economic justice" or what REALLY happened during the "Greek crisis" listening to that treasonous muppet regurgitating his usual contradictory verbal diarrhoea - depending on who's paying and listening - just ask his former "communist" comrades about his "moral crisis"...

[@harryalden6402]

Democrats are as responsible as Republicans. They are both complicit to the situation we find ourselves in!💥🔥

[@chrisbayridge23]

They are working together to hand over Everything to their .01% donors and basically enslave the poor and working class

[@lavonsense1]

They’re not complicit.

[@josephinestabel9647]

Yanis Varoufakis is like a New Greek God. Strong Men with high IQ and EQ. And Very Honest 👈 🌍. ⚖️

[@KKMDB]

Nice comment, but a little OTT. Although I wish Yanis were a god.

[@jazznroll5]

...unless you are Greek....they don't have the same opinion....

[@KKMDB]

Character assassination by the oligarchy.

[@jazznroll5]

@@KKMDB I would say lefty with the income/position/social status of an establishment member is a better description

[@KKMDB]

@@jazznroll5 🍑💨

[@hilaryporter7841]

Joe Biden should be made to listen to this discussion. It was brilliant and insightful. The world should listen.

[@jistikoff2361]

hahaha, you think Biden is something different from the parasitic oligarchs he is talking about, the wall-street pet and architect of the police state!? when you don't have critically thinking peoples but a herd of useful idiots cheering that imperialists now have black or brown faces and third genders, that's what happens

[@nicolagianaroli2024]

What for? Sleepy Joe is affected by dementia, didn't you know?

[@duncanmckeown1292]

Biden...even in his period of mental clarity...had/has no time for such ideas. Follow his career and you will see a consistent trail of servility to corporate interests: from advocating Wall Street's takeover of social security, to the prison-industrial complex, to his recent failure to support the £15 minimum wage. For all intents and purposes Biden is a Reagan Republican.

[@CORRIGEEN71]

Biden is a yes man who plays a a safe game

[@OdysseusMDA]

Meh he wouldn't understand a word

[@lupemerritt5522]

Yanis explains economics like no other. Thank you sir.👍👍

[@jeffreyscottking]

Your analysis cuts through all kinds of bullshit vernacular. Super good. This is the true framework of understanding the economy in proper historical context linking past with present.

[@joelwest5396]

Always love to see and hear Yanis. Yanis for EU President

[@geoffreycanie4609]

Varoufakis tells it like it is

[@kp6215]

I hate waste because humans know better our true smart people should lead the WORLD! Yanis has my vote!

[@titantic9160]

Just not any of the "split the atom" types, thanks.

[@georgesais8687]

Yes every generation fights the same battle again and again. The biggest battle is of course the education of the people to realise how we are exploited by the few. It is increasingly hard because of the monopolized corporate media and the corporate political parties. This interview could be shown anytime and still be relevent.

[@loZooDelloSchioppo]

Yeah that all make sense but how do we overthrow the existing structure of power that in the first place drives society❓

[@duncanmckeown1292]

Varoufakis has become one of the great left wing thinkers of our time, in my opinion. He (and his party colleagues) come up with really radical, and creative, new ideas for a green post-capitalist future. What I like best is his bottom-up approach to every problem. Now we just need the grass roots to get active!

[@joywilson8941]

I say-Amen! Let us in the grassroots be inspired, connect and join together!

[@kp6215]

Agree with Yanis!

[@MR2SHY]

YANISSS THE MANNNN.....👍👍👍👍✌✌✌✌✌👍👍🎓🎓🎓🎓

[@markuspfeifer8473]

When was this interview?

[@LannanFoundation]

October 2020

[@mariettestabel275]

Greeks-the Light of the World. 💫

[@hectorfigueroa305]

Has anybody read the creatures of Jekyll island ?

[@bundleofperceptions1397]

Yanis, according to Google Translate, the Dutch phrase you are looking for is "Sodemieter op!"

[@ThomiX0.0]

Or..'donder op!' Or much simpler: ' Rot op!' ..

[@hansolafsen77]

Abolishing the stock market sounds quite extreme. Why not yuuuge taxes on high frequency trading, short term short trading etc. but low taxes for long term investment in real companies?

[@drakekoefoed1642]

bezos would pay nothing. still, the idea has merit, though a heavy bomber strike on wall street would be better.

[@terra1242]

I'm conservative and believe that capitalism is the fastest way how to improve life of everyone however I also believe that left needs to be part of the equation as well for economy to be working for everyone. This is exactly what i was thinking for long time it seems that our finance world is getting increasingly remote from real economy. It start to first bothering me when I noticed how much more money you can earn just by betting on rise or fall prices without creating anything of value for anyone.

[@drakekoefoed1642]

You are in peril of finding out the capitalists lied to us since we were kids, and revising your views as scientists do each time a scientific revolution happens. Capitalism is exclusive instead of inclusive because the basic building unit, the stock corporation, is not at all bothered by making billions while creating negative value. This is the destructive financialization that bothers you because you are not a psychopath. Real conservatives are the natural enemies of things like the surveillance capitalist state that would destroy privacy sub silencio in the name of convenient home appliances and cell phones. Compare the claims of fast improvement with capitalism's reduction of living standards since 1970, and China's increase in it since 2000.

[@edkrstic6423]

Thank you Yanis

[@ChicagoTurtle1]

I love Yanis. Just one point of criticism. Pumping the national currency when the lenders ask for euros and dollars is not an irrational idea. There’s more value in the national currency in the exchange.

[@coreycox2345]

If I understand your comment correctly, it seems dishonest, but ethically along the lines with other things that we have been doing, Chicago Turtle1. It will make us a less desirable trading partner, and China is expanding its trading partners with the belt and road initiative. We will at some point become irrelevant.

[@veronicarodriguez8094]

"common sense" glad i reserved that right goodness

[@garrettramirez428]

This event was a partnership between the heir of a man who put Pinochet in power, Patrick Lannan, and an ostensibly revolutionary publisher.

[@buickadelaide1283]

Well said yanis!!!!

[@tendrams]

A rare glimpse into YF's liquor cabinet. LOL!

[@Natallou55]

I really want to iron Daniels shirt 🙂

[@kp6215]

Transparency must see the data first!

[@sleep_now...]

What happened to the horses? That is the question.

[@francescopanzeri4391]

Robert Maxwell?

[@robertrowland3750]

21:25 ...sound like he coughed directly into the mic. What's up with that?

[@lunaridge4510]

You probably didn't noticed that, but the mic was wearing a special mic mask and is probably immunized already. If, during a really important discussion, you have nothing to contribute, nothing to say--well, then say something anyway.

[@ieatspacemonkeys]

Confusing Robert Maxwell with James Clerk Maxwell is for engineers akin to confusing Adam Smith with Granny Smith! He will be rolling in his flux.

[@lunaridge4510]

But Varoufakis is not a physicist. He is an economist. As an engineer myself, I am very impressed with his deep understanding of the theoretical and technological discoveries that underpinned the 2nd Industrial Revolution. He is here clearly referring here to the physicist who created the classical electromagnetism, called Maxwell equations, not some granny. If you are an engineer, quickly, can you properly spell the 1st and 2nd names of Gibbs? How about Tesla? Lorentz? either of them will do. . .

[@Anarchidi]

Its like if we confused Ludwig Von Mises (that bastard!) with his brother Richard Von Mises (the famous mathematician, who really helped develop fluid mechanics).

[@ieatspacemonkeys]

@@lunaridge4510 can you spell a number of different types of apple? Grannies indeed! I think Yanis as ever has a lot of good points, I just really don't like Robert Maxwell! Oh, Yanis is also a mathematician who worked on game theory as I recall, so I'd say he is pretty damn 'switched' on when it comes to the sciences, as his original work would have applicability in that area.

[@ieatspacemonkeys]

@@Anarchidi now if Yanis can prove Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness, we would have a true polymath! Go Yanis ;)

[@KleineJoop]

@@lunaridge4510 Indeed. Most engineers don't know any of those names, it doesn't help you do the job better, it's not usefull, most engineers aren't academics trying to further science. Perhaps in the US yeah, but i suspect that has more to do with filling up educations so that the student debt stays high.

[@kp6215]

Yanis is logical!

[@garysymons3930]

At about 1:07: 06 the viewers question "how does our relationship to land have to change post capitalism " the question is very vague and theoretical because it assumes an alternate type of government which is not going to happen at least not in respect of land being taken in colonial times . However in "my" country South Africa the government has had to face just this problem and it began a process of the government having to buy back land on a willing buyer and willing seller basis in special Courts , The land Claims Court which then lapsed by legislation into full state expropriation . This began in about 1995 and continues to this day . Has it worked ?, I would say it has although under the influence of more radical political forces the existing land owners were simply gunned down .

[@GovindSurya1]

Why Not Greece Turkey Should Develop Policy To Look Towards Asia for Solutions for Next 30 Years

[@fieldlab4]

Addressing post-capitalism means considering radical alternative economies.

[@ryerye9019]

Brilliant analysis. The EU was engineered for constant petty squabbling.

[@chrisbayridge23]

It's bread and circuses 🎪 just without the bread 🍞

[@comet315]

The sciolist professor has a gift of talking much without actually saying anything.

[@virgiliustancu9293]

It is not about investment it is about rich people have not enough assets to put their money in them.

[@davideldred.campingwilder6481]

Someone said. Capitalist Philanthropy, is like screwing for virginity. Discuss...

[@mkraulis]

Enjoyable interview. A constructive criticism: you might want to iron your shirt. Personally speaking, I am ambivalent about the shirt as it has no bearing on the ideas brought to light in the interview, but images presented can affect, whether favorable or unfavorable, the reception of ideas.

[@lunaridge4510]

Who irons shirts this century? Who even has an iron? good grief.

[@dailyrants33]

"So...at 32:53"? It comes by design, not by accident.This is an agenda.

[@nickb863]

Yanis refers to money markets but then his anecdotes reference equities, which function in different ways than money markets and have different characteristics. Wish he would better flesh out the mechanics of finance rather than just making broad sweeping statements. Same with his statement that central banks issue debt. Governments issues debt to the public. Not central banks. Central banks buy or sell gov't debt to expand or contract the money supply. They are not capital allocators. They are regulators.

[@pcarr3127]

u should be critiquing lockdowns if u really care about the folk most harmed by them, who are the usual suspects, and which don't include former finance ministers or well-heeled academics

[@willbell2339]

Yanis is too left for my liking. The simple solution to the world’s economic problems is to force multinationals to pay their fair share of tax, remove political corruption and take care of the poor.

[@santinorider7536]

I expect he would agree with you.... Fair tax, reducing corruption and taking care of the poor are 3 key platforms of 'the left', worldwide. Note he is a capitalist first, socialist second... The problem, is that most believe the US is a capitalist nation. It's more a feudalist empire.

[@TrueWojak]

Yanis knows about the reset. Dan missed it.

[@chrishyde1216]

This is a tour de force.

[@scrambaba]

How does Varoufakis respond to the argument that money-printing and bailouts kept the economy from collapsing and causing millions to lose their jobs?

[@veronicarodriguez8094]

❤ hotcakes! 2020 is no Event "State" is not universal [reserve the right to further readdress]

[@VinsLeMans]

The policy making absurdities that are being drafted decade after decade to keep this failed system afloat are simply astounding You can’t make them up. Literally imagine a group of toddlers who stomp their feet on the ground while screaming “ no,no,no”. That’s the representation of the oligarchs and their clinging onto power stubbornness. And what’s worse is that they are already running against every moral and logic coherency or rationality. They WILL carry on if not stopped, this has to be understood.

[@drakekoefoed1642]

the will, and they will take the world climate to destruction. fortunately, the guillotine

[@cooltrades7469]

I am against terminating markets;-)).Anyway , untill it happens I might not care so much.

[@chrisharraway1425]

Yanis has never suggested that...neither has Corbyn, where did you get that idea from I wonder....Murdoch?

[@chrisharraway1425]

however, you comment poses an interesting juxtaposition: Capitalism is definitely transferring so much wealth to so few people that it will terminate markets....so given this definite trend...why would you support this or not care that it is a reality?

[@cooltrades7469]

@@chrisharraway1425 He said it,listen carefully.It's there.And as an independent trader....I am against,of course.But ,yet again beeing,for now, an utopian ideea, by the time it happens......4 sure it will not make any difference for me.And,just as an information, trading is actually a f...g hard craft to master at any level.Lots of learning and loses to take till you got''an edge''.Not a thing 4 so many.

[@cooltrades7469]

@@chrisharraway1425 Financial markets will be here for longtime.They have like 600 years back in time.So.....d8n't take out the red flag,yet;-)

[@chrisharraway1425]

@@cooltrades7469 no...he really didn't say "end financial markets".... He is pro-capitalism, but anti the current unsustainable trend of increasing the wealth of the very few at the expensise of the very many and the planet. This has been pointed out at Davos many times and each year more younger, brighter, rich people are bring the topic up...they are telling the old school fuckwads that they are literally going to break society when things reach a tipping point. In the 50's the top 1% owned less than 20% of the World's wealth...by the end of the 80's that had gone above 30%...not it is above 55%....THAT is the trend that will ultimately break the World economy and therefore make imaginary money useless...where the tipping point is is the real question. THAT is whst will ultimately end financial markets. 75%? 80%? Wherever it is, we are already seeing the civil uprising it is starting to cause....and that element of thr dynamic is only going to get louder and more uncontrollable as that percentage of wealth held by the very very few increases. Thereby decreasing circulation of wealth that is the lifeblood of all markets. See?

[@deansusec8745]

This guy is funny. When the economy is going down, people SAVE their money. The best place to be saving is the Stock market.

[@enciam3680]

You've just perfectly described the problem with the stock market. Investors use it like a savings account that is totally uncoupled from the real economy. A savings account backed by public banks and fiscal policy. That's exactly the point Varoufakis is making. The stock market isn't supposed to be a savings account, its a way to invest equity in exchange for the possibility of a share of future profits. Since 2008, future profits are off the table since austerity sucked the demand out of the real economy, and actual savings accounts generate next to nothing because interest rates are on the floor. Therefore the rich use the stock market as their own protected savings accounts knowing that the nanny state will protect the value of their investments with QE, bailouts and equity purchases, even at the expense of the real economy. That's the entire problem he's describing.

[@deansusec8745]

@@enciam3680 that doesn't make sense. The stock market is independent of the government. Austerity as far as I can understand, is when the government spends less money. So what? The economy is actually built on private exchange of money and goods, not the government spending on made up jobs.

[@deansusec8745]

@@enciam3680 what IS uncoupled from the economy and what I can agree with the commies is the real estate market. It has always risen exponentially and makes no sense with the economy at all.

[@enciam3680]

@@deansusec8745 you didn't watch the video did you? :D OK let me explain very briefly why the stock market is not at all disconnected from the government. After the 2008 crash, the central banks of the world printed oodles of cash to refloat the global monetary supply and bail out failing banks (quantatitve easing). They bought incredible amounts of failing bank assets and gave them an enormous cash injection. The bankers then took that cash and lent it to the large corporations at historically low interest rates, because they weren't going to lend it to consumers or small businesses because they were too much of a default risk. The corporations took the low/zero interest rate money and instead of investing it in jobs or products, bought their own shares (because doing so pushes up the price of their shares due to scarcity and means a huge payday to shareholders and board members who have remuneration linked to the stock performance). That is the IV drip that runs from the government to the stock market, via central banks, commercial banks and corporations. For more evidence, look at Mario Dragi doing 'whatever it takes' to save the Eurozone, the response of the Fed and the BoE buying bonds, debt and equity on the primary marketplace to keep the stock market afloat. It goes right back to the birth of neoliberalism and fiat currency really, it is clear as day that government uses whatever tools it has to keep the stock market performing even if the real economy goes down the tubes.

[@enciam3680]

@@deansusec8745 Also just a quick point on why austerity sucks the demand out of the economy: yes, austerity is the government cutting their budgets and cutting back spending and key services. Reduced pension / welfare / public services / public sector jobs. That sucks the demand out of the economy because people affected have less to spend. As consumption decreases in the economy, so does investment (why bother to invest in producing a new car when fewer people can afford to buy it?). Also although it seems counter productive, austerity usually increases public debt, because debt is usually measured as a percentage of GDP, so by shrinking the GDP, even if the dollar value of the debt goes down, it usually increases as a portion of GDP. See the debt to GDP ratios of the countries that practiced the worst austerity post 2008 for examples.

[@ewmism861]

You will own nothing and be happy lol

[@Nhoj737]

It's 'too late'? 'We' have ten years? “ . . . our best estimate is that the net energy 33:33 per barrel available for the global 33:36 economy was about eight percent 33:38 and that in over the next few years it 33:42 will go down to zero percent 33:44 uh best estimate at the moment is that 33:46 actually the 33:47 per average barrel of sweet crude 33:51 uh we had the zero percent around 2022 33:56 but there are ways and means of 33:58 extending that so to be on the safe side 34:00 here on our diagram 34:02 we say that zero percent is definitely 34:05 around 2030 . . . we 34:43 need net energy from oil and [if] it goes 34:46 down to zero 34:48 uh well we have collapsed not just 34:50 collapse of the oil industry 34:52 we have collapsed globally of the global 34:54 industrial civilization this is what we 34:56 are looking at at the moment . . . “ kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKnMn3SrbbSFrq8&feature=emb_logo

[@filmfanman65]

Growing a beard makes Dan Denvir less unlikable. But he's still pretty unlikeable.

[@Nikos74322]

Amazing...!!! And then he puts his mask on, gets his vaccine, his certificate and then disappears cruising with his motorbike like a free spirit in a misty horizon..

[@lunaridge4510]

what are you trying to say? seems like nothing in particular. Yanis is not gong to "disappear," he is quite busy leading a revolutionary movement--and not even a single one. And how do you know about his getting a vaccine? Useless remark, really.

[@ROOPIEF]

hahah exactly my thought! I have a recent video where he is stating that global governance is needed more than ever before, that we need more vaccines (!) etc.

[@kingpriapatius5832]

He destroyed the greek economy with his arrogance.

[@santinorider7536]

Yes, all he wanted was to remove Greece from endless servitude to corrupt bankers... It was his bosses at the time that folded to the corrupt bankers.

[@KleineJoop]

@@kingpriapatius5832 That's not true. "According to the EU", that explains it lol.

[@oro7114]

What this one man on the job for a few months not the predatory bankers and an economic system that is willing to sacrifice any nation to sustain itself