2008 & 2020: The Combination That Changed Capitalism Forever [Yanis Varoufakis]

Yanis is THE economist for our age! He taught at my alma mater University of Texas, though it was after my time there. Thanks to YouTube, I get to hear his lectures. He is bringing back the Golden Age of Greek philosophy!

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." Gramsci

Every crisis its Janis Varufakis that gives me the greatest insights of what's going on

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words, Yanis! «It is a gross error to imagine that we live in a world of the Americans against the Chinese, the Europeans against the Senegalese. No! This is a class war that is raging in every country, and the oligarchies without frontiers are very united in this. So, to my friend in Senegal: Your oligarchy are on very good terms with our oligarchy here in Greece, with the German oligarchy, with the American oligarchy. They have bonds of solidarity that I only wish the rest of humanity had.» Dear members of the human family, dear awakening and awakened people, "the rest of humanity" comprises ~ 99% of the world's population and we finally should show true solidarity across all borders, network and join us in a peaceful revolution against the ridiculous 1% of oligarchs/plutocrats! We are MANY, we are the overwhelming MAJORITY, we are TOO MANY TO FAIL!

Thank you for taking the time and care in understand that not everyone understands economics , and explaining in such simple terms so as person like me can have a better understanding how economics work. I have a growing appetite for more information now about how the economies of this world work , thanks to people like you guys. 🙏🙏🙏.

“Just because you are strong, does not mean that you have the rights to crash the weak” 👍 #ethics

I have only just discovered Mr Veroufakis. Its early days yet but I like him. I dont like what he's saying, it scares the living shy-e out of me but I do believe he knows his onions and I'm going to follow him closely from this day forward. More power to the elbow Janis, thank you

So very very nice to hearing sense spoken again. Thank you Yanis. More like you in politics and the world would be so much better off. THANK YOU!

To continue to think humans in power will do the right thing, is to ignore every war and every response to crisis.

Always, so good to hear Yanis tell it like it is. I am deeply grateful for his voice.

'We don't need private banking' - Wow, and amen.

This is so true. There is an absolute disconnection between real estate value and income levels for majority of the population. And this discrepancy has been increasing over and over. Yanis is right. I have been working so hard for the last 15 years, and there is no way I can afford to buy a house because the cost of rents and transportation is incredibly high compared to people's salaries. Most of my salary goes off to pay the bills, I hardly manage to save anything. I do not even own a car or motorbike.

Correction: The earliest joint-stock company recognized in England was the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, chartered in 1553 with 250 shareholders. Muscovy Company, which had a monopoly on trade between Moscow and London, was chartered soon after in 1555. The much more famous, wealthy and powerful English (later British) East India Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India.

Yannis Varoufakis should be influencing global economies. He saw what potential Bernie Sanders had to shape an intelligent US economic landscape. The two thinkers are a powerful force.-

I could listen to Yanni for hours, I hope he never gets tired of talking.

Asset prices are completely disconnected from reality. Housing prices in my area have gone up during the pandemic. I think the last time I checked Blackstone owned around 20,000 houses in Phoenix.

Strong discussion. I met this guy at the Sanders thing in 2018 and he was very cordial. This podcast is likely not anything new to most of us, but well distilled. Looks like we need to jump on that Progressive International! I also was impressed by Richard Duncan's work on a world wage floor, another interesting approach to global working class politics.

Points he is missing: these financial flows from the early 1980s were all about globalisation. Globalisation was all about capitalists maximising the returns on their international investments by exploiting global variations in local relative scarcities of resources, a kind of international division of labour. Seeking out energy, materials and labour where they are cheapest and selling the products and services produced where they are more expensive. The profits were recycled through NY and the City of London via multinationals repatriating profits and bond and asset sales to foreigners. The result was the tertiarisation of the economies of former western industrial powers. We all had misgivings about exporting manufacturing jobs, but it was difficult for most of us to put a finger on why. With hindsight we see that the secondary sector has more dynamism (meaning greater potential for productivity growth) than the tertiary sector (meaning retail, personal services, hospitality, catering, leisure and tourism etc.) This seen in the down grading of the job market. There are fewer upper level jobs and many very low level jobs; drivers, warehouse workers, nail technicians, bar staff, waiters etc., with little prospect of advancement. Practically 'dead end' jobs. As productivity growth stagnates so the real standard of living stagnates too. Trump was elected to try to reverse this process (rather late) by adopting a more nationalistic economic policy aiming to promote domestic production as opposed to offshore production and to repatriate manufacturing jobs to the US. COVID hits the tertiary sector worst off all, so it chokes the flows of revenues needed to sustain very large numbers of these low grade jobs.

Much love and respect Yanis.

this has been such an interesting and hopeful conversation and explanation. thank you both so very much!