And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future by Yanis Varoufakis

Author:Yanis Varoufakis [Varoufakis, Yanis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nation Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IMPOTENCE

It is 2011. The contagion of default and collapse is spreading via the common currency from country to country. The minister of finance of a major European nation, with an economy that dwarfs Greece’s, is keen for ideas on how to stop the domino effect taking his country down. He agrees to see a friend of mine who wishes to convey to the minister a proposal on how the eurozone debt juggernaut could be stopped in its tracks.

The minister hears the idea and likes it a lot. Immediately he asks his aides to organize meetings between his visitor and Brussels officials, members of the European Parliament and the like with a view to helping his visitor lobby these important European policy makers in favor of this interesting proposal. At that point his visitor turns around and says:

“Minister, what is the point? Why should I try to convince all these officials if I have convinced you? You are the finance minister of a major European nation. You sit on the Eurogroup and Ecofin (the European Union’s council of finance ministers). If you like my proposal, why don’t you table it as your own at that lofty forum?”

The minister smiles. He sits back in his plush armchair and responds in a manner that, tragically, makes perfect sense:

“Do you know what will happen if I table your splendid proposal? SMSs will stream out of the room while I am talking. The press will shortly be reporting that I am tabling a proposal for the central management of a part of the debt of every eurozone member-state. Seconds later the money markets will refuse to lend to my government, except at usurious interest rates, as the rumor spreads that, for me to be proposing such ideas, my government cannot refinance its debt. My dear friend, I shall cease to be minister the next day. How exactly will that help promote your proposal?”

A year later that minister was gone anyway, and so was his government. What never went away, judging by my own more recent experiences, is the terrible disconnect between the eminently sensible things some ministers say behind closed doors and the inanity of their statements in the Eurogroup, other official bodies and when the television cameras are switched on.

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