Yanis Varoufakis Best Quotes & Sayings

Once their gaze turned back toward Europe, the puzzle dissolved: West Germany was the obvious equivalent and, indeed, a splendid candidate for the role of the global plan's European shock-absorbing pillar - certainly not Britain. — Yanis Varoufakis

European Union partners never said European Union partners're going to renege on any promises, European Union partners said that European Union partners promises concern a four-year parliamentary term, european Union partners will be spaced out in an optimal way, in a way that is in tune with our bargaining stance in Europe and also with the fiscal position of the Greek state. — Yanis Varoufakis

In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the U.S. military's might, three printing firms, and hundreds of trucks. — Yanis Varoufakis

Even though I resigned as Papandreou's adviser early in 2006 and turned into his government's staunchest critic during his mishandling of the post-2009 Greek implosion, my public interventions in the debate on Greece and Europe have carried no whiff of Marxism. — Yanis Varoufakis

We will compromise and compromise and compromise but we will never be compromised. — Yanis Varoufakis

All dynamic societies founded their success on two production processes that unfolded in parallel: the manufacturing of a surplus and the manufacturing of consent (regarding its distribution). — Yanis Varoufakis

Toxic derivatives were underpinned by toxic economics, which, in turn, were no more than motivated delusions in search of theoretical justification; fundamentalist tracts that acknowledged facts only when they could be accommodated to the demands of the lucrative faith. Despite their highly impressive labels and technical appearance, economic models were merely mathematized versions of the touching superstition that markets know best, both at times of tranquility and in periods of tumult. — Yanis Varoufakis

My hope that Thatcher would inadvertently bring about a new political revolution was well and truly bogus. All that sprang out of Thatcherism were extreme financialisation, the triumph of the shopping mall over the corner store, the fetishisation of housing and Tony Blair. — Yanis Varoufakis

In a move that will remain in Irish annals as a stigma comparable to the potato famine, the Dublin government succumbed to ECB blackmail: make the German creditors of Ireland's commercial banks whole, even a bank that was closed down and thus no longer systemically important for Ireland's financial sector, or else. — Yanis Varoufakis

Years of crisis have culminated in a Europe that has lost legitimacy with its own citizens and credibility with the rest of the world. — Yanis Varoufakis

Fences and borders are a sign of weakness. — Yanis Varoufakis

When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization, he famously replied that "it would be a very good idea. — Yanis Varoufakis

Corporatists like Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet were bent on constructing the Brussels-based bureaucracy as a democracy-free zone. — Yanis Varoufakis

Every sensible banker understands that Greece should not have received any more money: a bankrupt state that can never be expected to repay loans is not a good debtor. — Yanis Varoufakis

Simple logic dictates that if you cannot even conceive the possibility of leaving a negotiation, then it is preferable never to enter one. — Yanis Varoufakis

Count Coudenhove-Kalergi put it succinctly in one of his speeches when he declared his ambition that Europe "supersedes democracy" and that democracy be replaced by a "social aristocracy of the spirit."52 — Yanis Varoufakis

If the British think they can simply detach from the continent and sail towards the USA or China, then they are mistaken. — Yanis Varoufakis

Ironically, the rise of the Tea Party increased the interventions of the Fed that the movement denounced. — Yanis Varoufakis

I don't believe a Brexit will hurt the City of London as one of the largest financial centers in the world. — Yanis Varoufakis

The economic crisis has weakened the EU for years. — Yanis Varoufakis

Alas, this was an open invitation to print one's own money! No wonder Warren Buffet took one look at the fabled CDOs and described — Yanis Varoufakis

I'm the finance minister of a bankrupt country — Yanis Varoufakis

In other words, the uninsured private bankers had to be bailed out illegally and utterly unethically. But the taxpayers who were forced to carry that can should not even be given better terms for repaying the odious, private debt they were forced to acquire in order to bail the bankers out. — Yanis Varoufakis

They are unanimous in their hate for me; and I welcome their hatred. (quoting FDR announcing the Second New Deal, 1936) — Yanis Varoufakis

Bankruptocracy is as much a European predicament as it is an American 'invention.' The difference between the experience of the two continents is that at least Americans did not have to labour under the enormous design faults of the eurozone. — Yanis Varoufakis

While it would have been straightforward, and perfectly legal, to allow Irish banks or the Greek state to default to their private creditors (so as to respect the no-bailout clause), the authorities' guilty desire to bail out the German and French banks (without telling taxpayers that this was what they were doing) led to the need to violate the no-bailout rule by concocting another rule: the no-default rule, which was never part of Europe's original set of rules. (...) Both the freshly minted no-default rule and the original no-bailout clause were political whims of the strong disguised as legal constraints upon the weak. In reality, the strong break their rules at will and concoct new rules whenever they think it suits them. — Yanis Varoufakis

For some reason, lots of terrible things start here and then spread. The Cold War was one. It didn't start in Berlin - it started in Athens in December 1944; the contagion in the eurozone started here in 2010. We are perfectly capable as Europeans of messing things up unnecessarily. — Yanis Varoufakis

I plan to concentrate on helping set up a Pan-European political movement, inspired by the Athens Spring, that will work toward Europe's democratization. — Yanis Varoufakis

Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. — Yanis Varoufakis

We Greeks are the blacks of Europe. — Yanis Varoufakis

Anyone who toys with the idea of cutting off bits of the eurozone hoping the rest will survive is playing with fire. — Yanis Varoufakis

The many refugees are not a Greek or German problem. They are a European problem. We should therefore develop a common strategy. That's why I am launching a cross-border movement for more democracy. — Yanis Varoufakis