Former Valve Economist Quits As Finance Minister Of Greece

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Apparently it is harder to be finance minister of Greece than it is to run virtual economies in Team Fortress 2. Who knew?

Varoufakis, an economics professor based in Athens, joined Valve in March 2012 as a consultant after Gabe Newell emailed to describe the problems his company ran into as the virtual economies around games such as Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 saw explosive growth.
 
"This guy couldn't get Half Life 3 made and couldn't fix the Greek economy. What good is he?"

Yeah, it's hard when you have major loop holes and people not paying taxes.
 
It's also hard when you have a copious amount of the national budget reserved for the pensions of former state employees.
 
Guys, I got this. My city in SimCity lasted 3 days. On medium difficulty.
 
If anyone is ware the Greek voted no recently. Wasn't covered on CNN or Fox news cause Trump.

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Greeks are a bunch of a-holes that never should have been brought into the EU in the first place.

1) Over 60% of Greeks are delinquent on their income taxes... yes 6/10 people didn't pay their taxes.
2) Greek youngsters say they aren't responsible for the debts of their parents, but they have no problem with German youngsters now paying each about $1800 a year in extra taxes to pay for the Greeks' debt.
3) They are the bastards that basically have the balls to say that not only are they NOT going to pay you back the $20 you lent them, but want you to lend them another $20, and are acting pissy that you don't want to give them more money.
4) Their excuse is that if they had their own currency, they could massively devalue it to make all their debt disappear, so its really the EU's fault... which is such a morally bankrupt POS mindset, it so pisses me off.

We need to simply authorize the Germans to militarize again and go into Greece and simply act as repo men and take back the debts they are owed, and then we can kick them out of the EU. They have some really nice Leopard tanks now... time for a little blitzkrieg nostalgia!
Leo2A4-KMW-01.jpg
 
At first I thought "Valve economist" was a typo.

Apparently Valve actually hired an economist at some point...
 
I'm not sure anyone really expected this to go any other way. The Greek government is totally incapable of managing their deficit and the Greek people will not accept any austerity measures, or even pay their taxes so their economy is doomed.
 
Greeks are a bunch of a-holes that never should have been brought into the EU in the first place.

1) Over 60% of Greeks are delinquent on their income taxes... yes 6/10 people didn't pay their taxes.
2) Greek youngsters say they aren't responsible for the debts of their parents, but they have no problem with German youngsters now paying each about $1800 a year in extra taxes to pay for the Greeks' debt.
3) They are the bastards that basically have the balls to say that not only are they NOT going to pay you back the $20 you lent them, but want you to lend them another $20, and are acting pissy that you don't want to give them more money.
4) Their excuse is that if they had their own currency, they could massively devalue it to make all their debt disappear, so its really the EU's fault... which is such a morally bankrupt POS mindset, it so pisses me off.

We need to simply authorize the Germans to militarize again and go into Greece and simply act as repo men and take back the debts they are owed, and then we can kick them out of the EU. They have some really nice Leopard tanks now... time for a little blitzkrieg nostalgia!
Leo2A4-KMW-01.jpg

This would imply the Greeks have anything of material value that can be taken, which they really don't
 
Greece can't make enough money to pay its debts, so in order for them to get a bailout you want the terms of that bailout to result in them making even less money.

Makes sense to me.
 
Sadly us here in the USA are heading down the same path. Amazing how piss poor people are with money.
 
Sadly us here in the USA are heading down the same path. Amazing how piss poor people are with money.

Greece has a population of around 11.5 million with an economy the size of Alabama's that's contracted about 25% in the last 8 years. There's really no way for us to go down the same path. If what's happening in Greece is a contagion, something similar here would be bubonic plague.
 
This guy's solution to the crisis was to lock down withdrawals. Yep, nice job, buddy.

Socialist economy is a contradiction in terms.
 
Greece can't make enough money to pay its debts, so in order for them to get a bailout you want the terms of that bailout to result in them making even less money.

Makes sense to me.
Greeks aren't paying their taxes, they don't WANT to pay and they feel like they don't have to. Its entitlement culture gone wild. They can get jobs and work hard like anyone else, but they feel they don't have to, because bleeding hearts in Europe keep writing them blank checks with no hope of repayment.

This isn't rocket science. You lied to me to get into the EU, defrauding the other countries about how much debt you have. Then you get free money and trade benefits to invest, you squander it on socialist programs left and right, and then when its time to pay the money back you say no. Then you have the balls to put your hand out and say give me more money? What kind of idiot would do that?

EU needs to collect what they can from Greece, and then kick their ass out of the EU before Spain and Italy get the idea that they can just not pay too. I always said it was a bad idea to accept the socialist countries into the EU to begin with. It should have just been the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Then that entity should have made another trade alliance with the United States and Canada, called the Western Super Best Friends or whatever, and we would have been in good shape.
 
I always said it was a bad idea to accept the socialist countries into the EU to begin with. It should have just been the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Finland, and Sweden.

You do realize all of those countries have varying degrees of "socialist" policies, some to an extent unfathomable in American politics. For instance Switzerland is currently debating a national minimum guaranteed income.
 
Norway, Finland, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden are among the top 10 most socialist countries in the world . . .
 
Greece has a corrupt government that borrowed money and nobody knew. They have very high military spending. But Greece sits in a very hot spot in the world where they need good military to defend themselves, and huge illegal immigrant problems that enter the country and leave a wake of destruction and debt.

It's like America but 100x worse when it comes to money.
 
Greece has a corrupt government that borrowed money and nobody knew.

Not sure how nobody knew, this has been a well publicized issue for about five years know. I work at a mega bank and we've spent of lot of time analyzing that situation and particularly in my world any impact Greece leaving the Euro would have on our systems.

They have very high military spending. But Greece sits in a very hot spot in the world where they need good military to defend themselves, and huge illegal immigrant problems that enter the country and leave a wake of destruction and debt.

Greece has been at the crossroads of trouble for millennia.
 
<SNIP> I always said it was a bad idea to accept the socialist countries into the EU to begin with. It should have just been the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Then that entity should have made another trade alliance with the United States and Canada, called the Western Super Best Friends or whatever, and we would have been in good shape.

I am just going to say it...your an idiot.

http://blog.peerform.com/top-ten-most-socialist-countries-in-the-world/
 
Greece isn't even as socialist as the United States, The American government employs a vastly larger percentage of her own population than most other countries in the world. The USA has been a country that built massive government since some time in mid 1776, with infrastructure and civil programs that were unheard of anywhere else in the world. She's always been the left wing kook of the world, but the US government pretty well always has a plan. All of them. Republican and Democrat. And they execute it as well. That's given the US a very similar look to oligarchies around the world, but it also staves off or lessens disasters as well as giving the government the ability to recover from them.

The difference is populism, Greece has far more malleable public policy than most countries, the result is legislation has a far closer tie to public opinion. The only people who form governments in Greece are deplorable populists, they suck-hole around for votes just like any other country's elected scum, but in Greece they wind up actually having to do the stupid shit they promised. When your politicians (both left and right in Greece if anyone even cares to stop pointing fingers) are buying votes with an endless bevy of social programs, anti-wealth policies, and constant state investment in Greek corporations to please enough people to get votes... You need to pay the bill some time, needless to say they can't, and it's unlikely Greece will ever change its nature without massive social upheaval.

Look at their latest leader, if there's another bail out there should be a clause that forces him to change his name from Siliakus to Wottadouche. The guy is utterly repellent.

That's OK, Germany is good about creating work programs. Arbeit macht Frei!

I like to think the the worlds conservatives are also made up of moral and functional human beings for the most part instead of people like.... You.
 
Not sure how nobody knew, this has been a well publicized issue for about five years know. I work at a mega bank and we've spent of lot of time analyzing that situation and particularly in my world any impact Greece leaving the Euro would have on our systems.
I mean nobody knew before 2009.

Greece has been at the crossroads of trouble for millennia.
Greece is a country that had back to back problems one after the other. After 400 years of slavery the Greeks fought the Ottoman Empire until 1832. Though wars with Ottoman Empire lasted well into the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then you have WW1 and WW2. Lots of political struggles that went on afterwards. I believe they even kicked out their last king who was British?

Without being a technological country like Germany, Greece will never have the finances they need. But who knows maybe the Finance Minister left to get Gaben and buy Greece for the PC master race. :D But yea no there's lots of worse countries in Europe besides Greece. Wasn't there an episode of Top Gear where they were in Spain and they traveled through empty streets?
 
Well, there's the land itself.

Which is nothing but mountains but it has a lot of ancient stuff lying around. Though at this point the UK could buy Greece and put the country in a museum.
 
And BTW, a list of the most socialist countries that doesn't include North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Laos, and so forth? Mmmmhmmm, right.
 
And BTW, a list of the most socialist countries that doesn't include North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Laos, and so forth? Mmmmhmmm, right.

I'm betting they had an economic cut off for that list, which makes the list pretty useless.

North Korea is kind of different, since it's more fascist than anything else, all of the resources go to the ruling elite.

Of course Fascism and Communism become more and more similar as they become increasingly radical.
 
"This guy couldn't get Half Life 3 made and couldn't fix the Greek economy. What good is he?"

Yeah, it's hard when you have major loop holes and people not paying taxes.

Major loop holes?!
That sounds like Portal!

People not paying taxes?!
That sounds like the Vortigaunts!

Half-Life 3 confirmed!
 
He left for more stable employment - as finance minister of Puerto Rico. :p
 
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