Saturday 8 August 2015

Greek Africanist smackdown- Lapavitsas vs Varoufakis.

Varoufakis is not the only Africanist Economist in Syriza. Lapavitsas, a Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, too is convinced that his country ought to split off from Europe, squeeze through the Suez Canal, sail past the Equator and claim its rightful place between Mugabe's Zimbabwe and a Mozambique ruled by a resurrected Samora Machel.

Is Lapavistas stupider than Varoufakis? Let us weigh up the evidence

1) Lapavistas thinks accepting a bailout will be recessionary- i.e. aggregate demand will fall. This is false. If liquidity is restored, Aggregate Demand will go up. If there is no bail out, Greece loses its export market. Investment dries up. The Greek slump actually began before Govt spending was curtailed because of the poor climate for start-ups. Lapavistas, quite ludicrously, speaks of a mere 3 months of pain before Grexit restores prosperity. External depreciation takes 18 months under the best of circumstances. As for his proposed 1 to 1 conversion to the Drachma, European Law holds that Contracts denominated in Euros have to be paid in Euros. As for Vulture funds suing in U.S courts and grabbing Greek assets, our boy has nothing to say.
By contrast, Varoufakis simply puts his hands down the back of his pants and draws out fistfuls of shit which  he calls chocolate cake.
Advantage Varoufakis.
2) Varoufakis moans that the bailout is Versailles, Lapavistas says it's not Brest Litovsk, it buys no time for the Bolsheviks (i.e. Syriza) to reorganize and rearm so as to kill their own people more plentifully than the Germans.
Advantage Lapavistas.
3) Varoufakis is for Privatisation. Lapavistas invokes Harold Macmillan's 'Selling the family Silver' fallacy. When I sell an asset, I get cash now and nothing later. When the Govt sells an asset, it gets cash now as well as tax revenue on the stream of profits that the asset generates in, more efficient, private hands.
Lapavistas now leads by one point.
4) Lapavitsas says Euro mechanisms are 'reified class practice'. Fiat money always is. Nothing can change this. So you have to get out of the Euro. Also the Drachma. Cowrie shells are the way to go.
Varoufakis is getting desperate. He blurts out, to a bunch of hedge fund managers- i.e. the vultures who profit from the collapse of a monetary union- that he tried to hack the Tax files of every citizen. He gets charged with treason. Suddenly he's all over the news, shoving his hands down the back of his pants and feasting on his own shit.
Sorry, Lapavitsas. Your cowrie shells aint gonna cut it. Go back to SOAS and concentrate on trying to fuck up genuinely black people you worthless gobshite.

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