| "but if you take the time to read/watch his interview his thinking is crystal clear" And here is, I think, the problem. In general people don't take the time, and that's OK, but then they have not problem in having a strong opinion, that they read in some interested media. My advice to the people so inclined is: check some of Varoufakis (and others) youtube interviews. Read a little about what is going on. Check, for instance, how Spain was allowed to spend without consequences above the deficit limits just before the elections. Check how, in the same way there is a limit to deficits in the treaties, there is a limit in surplus that Germany don't feel it has to respect. Or just think how it's impossible that everybody is in surplus at the same time. Or how all integrated monetary areas have deficit and surplus regions and that is OK because they have some way to compensate the unbalances. |
For example if you read the picture The Economist paints around him, as opposed to Dijsselbloem (Dutch Minister of Finance) who is technically several orders of magnitude inferior is astonishing.
Varoufakis said that when he went to the US, at the beginning of his tenure, someone (Larry Summers?) told him that he'll be the victim of an organised campaign of character assassination by Brussels. I found this claim a tiny bit far-fetched, but on the other hand, the amount of false claims the established media kept throwing at him is amazing.
I came across ppl who thought Varoufakis as a buffoon like Trump, Boris Johnson, etc. and other political figures who can't put two words together. V is not like that at all, he is a intellectual beast, with a surprising ability to simplify rather complex ideas.