Here’s another edition of “How to Explain Politics/Economics to a 4 Year Old”. I haven’t done this, but I may as well now. Economics really is the most important secular subject for people to understand because when some big politico gets up in front of a crowd and starts spouting finance terms, 999,999 times out of a million he’s trying to confuse you while he steals your money and you sit there and nod saying to yourself that it’s OK you don’t understand what he’s talking about because you don’t have a degree in this stuff.
But first, these little snippets are going well, so here’s another one. Varoufakis claimed 2 days ago that “He never gave the finger to anyone. Ever.” After being caught giving Germany the finger. Well, then he must not have hands.
In any case, Bob Wenzel at EPJ is picking up once again with what I figured out back in 2012. Varoufakis’s grand insane scheme for a United States of Europe. He’s couching it in a bunch of technical language about bonds and yields and coupons and agreements and treaties and trying to baffle everyone with his bullshit. Here’s what he wants, why he’s insane, and why this diarrhea of the mouth will certainly get Greece kicked out of the Euro for good. Now I’m sure of it.
How to explain this to a 4 year old (more or less): Let’s say I’m a central bank in my household because I’m the dictator and I have a monopoly over the money supply in my house. I decide what allowance my kids get. Now, one of them spends too much money and he has a bunch of debt he can’t pay. The other one stays in budget. Now, Varoufakis is saying the solution to this is to equalize the debt so both of my kids are now carrying the same debt burden so both of them can have an equal shot at paying it back. How PISSED is the other kid going to be?
That’s what he’s saying. Instead of Greek bonds he wants Eurobonds. The Eurobonds will be issued by Eurozone governments, so all of them will have the same yield no matter who sells them. So if one country goes crazy into debt, everyone in the Eurozone has to pay that country’s debt. Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over great with the frugal states. They’ll love it. It’s bond communism on a continental scale. Gross scary evil stuff.
Wow, talk about tragedy of the commons. That means Germany has to pick up all of Greece’s debt and spread pain throughout the rest of the Eurozone just because Greece decided to spend too much on welfare.
No sovereign European government is going to stand for this crap. Varoufakis is a crazy red Leninist nutcase. In a matter of days, Greece is out. Certainly the Germans see right though this Bolshevik insanity.
The contradictions of these people, it just blows my mind. Now someone on a video at The Guardian is defending him using this gem language:
“His point was related to events in 2010 when he was in favor of a Greek default within the Eurozone, but this was taken out of context in order to make it seem as if he was in favor of not paying the debt owed to Germany and giving Germany the finger.”
Do you see how these sophists use one technical term (default) to hoodwink you? A default means that you do not pay your debt. That’s the definition of the word. So how can he be in favor of a default but still be in favor of paying debt?
Let’s take the technical term out and rephrase this iron defense of Varoufakis:
His point was related to events in 2010 when he was in favor of a Greece not paying the debt within the Eurozone, but this was taken out of context in order to make it seem as if he was in favor of not paying the debt owed to Germany and giving Germany the finger.”
Contradiction. Is anyone alive out there? Can anyone hear me?
I’m on fire with movie quotes these days.
The Jewish Libertarian 
To be fair, the “Eurobonds” idea hasn’t been brought up by Varoufakis – it has been floating around for while and has been praised by various EU-level politicans (Barroso, Delors) as the only way to create a true fiscal union, as if we needed one! 😦
It is all beyond depressing.
I had to read this three to four times.
So this means Varoufakis has been hired by EU to make either of this: force Greece out because they’re a weak economy and let this “punishment” be the foundation of USE (a gang has no value unless someone gets kicked out so the remaining look like an elite) or let the Greece “being forgiven” be the foundation of USE. Meanwhile he will take money from Greeks to presumably pay the debt to Germany which he won’t pay because he said so the money goes to him and the rest of posse (including of course the EU officials running this “bailout”), money also useful to make USE happen but not to pay any debt?
The story about the WWII debt was to emotionally blind the Greeks so they don’t see the details of his actions?
You also said that Greece overspent on welfare but in EU when the crisis began it was said that the problem was with Greeks not paying taxes if they had small business (to stimulate micro-economy), I wonder what really happened?
I don’t think anyone but Varoufakis is interested in a United States of Europe. In America it sort of works because semi-sovereign (less and less so) states can issue their own state bonds and they are each self-contained. A USE in Varoufakis’s plan would presumably have every country issuing the same Eurobonds for its own benefit (or probably divvied up by the ECB that would control which countries go into how much debt, which would give it even more control over everything like an absolute dictator) and the collective interest rate being shared. Like a big pile of food that whoever takes the most from gets to eat the most.
Ah…