He has called himself an “accidental economist” and has likened Greece’s position in the euro zone as a “Hotel California” lyric, he has taught economics in Greece, Britain, Australia and the U.S., his controversial blogposts won him thousands of admirers. After all that, Yanis Varoufakis is deservedly the non-conventional new finance minister in an non-conventional government.
The 53-year-old Greek-Australian has won the admiration of SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, who trusted him to run the “difficult” finance ministry at a time when Greece will negotiate its economic future with its international creditors.
The fact that he was financial adviser to George Papandreou’s short but catastrophic administration is of little importance now that the victory celebrations are still fresh. Varoufakis himself admitted that it was a “stupid mistake” to advise the man who “drove Greece to hell.” Now, as finance minister he will negotiate the bailout program to pull Greece out of this mess.
Varoufakis studied mathematics, statistics and received his economics doctorate at Essex University in 1987. He started teaching the following year and from 1989 to 2000 taught at the University of Sydney. He then moved to his native Greece where he is still a Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens.
He wrote several books on economics and game theory. His economic theories combine John Maynard Keynes with a pinch of Karl Marx, as an economist has described them. He likens the situation of Greece in the euro zone as a lyric from a famous song, “The last line in Hotel California explains where we are: you can check out any time, but you can never leave,” he has told Bloomberg.
Now he has the task of ending the humanitarian crisis, renegotiate Greece’s debt and destroy Greek oligarchs, as he promised in his election campaign.
“We are going to destroy the basis upon which they have built for decade after decade a system, a network that viciously sucks the energy and the economic power from everybody else in society,” he told Britain’s Channel 4 television.
However, Varoufakis has softened his stance on the issue of the negotiations with Greece’s lenders saying that Athens should “minimize conflict and maximize the chances of a mutually beneficial agreement.”
The working title of his next book, “Reverse Alchemy: Europe on the Road to Disintegration,” might be indicative of what he thinks about the euro zone.
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