The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Today a long

interview with the Greek economist Janus Verafakis. Janus was on this show

16 times between 2008 and 2014, first discussing austerity-induced

rioting in that country, and then masterfully analyzing the trajectory of the Euro crisis,

which, alas, has not gone away. This is his first appearance on

behind the news since November 2014. Yannes Varofakis was born in Athens in

1961. He went to Britain for his undergraduate and graduate education, getting degrees in both

math and economics. From 1982 to 87 he taught economics in England, then moved to Australia

where he taught for 13 years. He returned to Greece in 2000. When Greece's

economy fell apart starting around 2009, he found it increasingly difficult to do

his academic work and went abroad again doing stints with a video game maker,

Valve, studying their fictional monetary system,

which he discussed on this show,

and also at the University of Texas.

He returned to Greece and was elected to Parliament

in January 2015 and was appointed

Finance Minister.

As Finance Minister, he was the lead negotiator with Greece's creditors, the European Union,

Germany and its hardline allies like the Netherlands, the European Central Bank, and the

IMF.

They spurned all its proposals.

In July 2015, after Greek voters approved the creditors bailout proposal with many nasty strings attached, Verifoccus

...