| HN Mirror

I don’t mean to argue, and I would agree with you that the debt crisis it self was not because of Varufakis, or the entire semi-communist government that had to deal with it (which it self was voted in power to punish the “status quo”), but few doubt, (even the then prime minister, Tsipras) that the initial negotiation tactics were disastrous and almost resulted in a Grexit that was prevented at the last minute. Varufakis was not only promoting “creative vagueness”, but also was publicly bragging about playing the “chicken game” (who will chicken out first during a head on collision) with the EU partners. He was implicitly threatening a Grexit assuming that the EU would be too scared to do it. It was later found out that the German finance minister was also in favor of a Grexit, but fortunately the German chancellor was not. Also it was later found out that he together with some random US profesor (whatever) was trying to design a second “coin” (of course a crude resemblance of one: he would pay government employees with worthless coupons). This suggests that he was a self absorbed asshole out of touch with reality and the voters’ desire (no one in Greece wanted to exit the euro) whose negotiations admittedly costed Greece about 100 billion euros (or something of that order). He did not quit, he was expelled from the government, a government of incompetent naive idiots that rode the wave of populism in a moment of crisis and not criterion and ability to chose a capable finance minister. So given that, I believe it is fair to say that his world views are probably also out of touch with reality, he would also purposely deceive, and therefore he does not have any credibility. An essay from ChatGPT is more likely to be on the point.