Yanis Varoufakis: The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy

I enjoyed this video in which Yanis Varoufakis explains some geopolitical macro economics during the post WWII and cold war era, why the crash/recovery of 2008 is mutating into different forms. ▶ this video The U.S. had to be very creative in order maintain power when they no longer had any economic surpluses (surpluses which greatly diminished from wars like Vietnam).

He gave 2 talks a few years ago that are well worth a watch - he talks briefly about the abuse of mathematics in certain parts of academic economy, cites a Star Trek Voyager episode and other interesting things: link ▶ this video

Other Varoufakis videos that are worth watching if you want to know more about him and his views: * "The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy " -- about his book, a nice narrative of the last 100 years of the political economy -- ▶ this video * Richard D. Wolf's Global Capitalism update featuring Varoufakis -- Richard D. Wolf is always fun to watch, he looks like a Marxist version of Homeland's Saul Berenson -- link * "Confessions of an Errant Marxist" -- sort of Varoufakis's origin story -- link * Bizarre BBC Newsnight interview with Varoufakis -- where you can see the BBC's idealogical function leaking through -- link It's evident from watching these that he is almost without exception the smartest person in every room he's in. And unlike most other economists, he is actually, you know, alive. Also, the obligatory Pettis articles that should be read by everyone who wishes to form an opinion about Greece's current position: * link * link And to encourage some cynanism about the neoliberal wisdoms, here's a contrarian economist called Ha-Joon Chang: * "23 Things they don't tell you about about Capitalism" -- link And then of course at the end of the rainbow there is David Harvey: * "The 17 Contradictions of Capitalism", LSE -- link We also recently had a spirited HN thread about Greece that had some good stuff in it: link