The Observer

What could be more delightful than a trip to Greece to meet Yanis Varoufakis, the charismatic leftwing firebrand who tried to stick it to the man, AKA the IMF, EU and entire global financial order? The mental imagery I have before the visit is roughly two parts Zorba the Gr eek to one part an episode of […]

By Paul Robinson | Irrussianality | November 26, 2020 Russian Disinformation. Russian Disinformation. Russian Disinformation. How many time have you heard that over the past four years? But what about British disinformation? Much of the current Russia paranoia began with the claims that Donald Trump was recruited by Russian intelligence years ago as a sleeper […]

By Damian Wilson | RT | November 26, 2020 Discredited, Brexit-obsessed hack Carole Cadwalladr faces having to explain why demonstrably false claims of dodgy Russian links, illegal funding and data manipulation during the referendum deserve journalism’s highest accolades. The headline said it all above the prize-winning journalist’s latest piece, ‘A shadowy global operation involving big […]

REVIEW: Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Την περασμένη εβδομάδα οι τίτλοι και τα πρωτοσέλιδα των ΜΜΕ «γιόρτασαν το τέλος της οικονομικής διάσωσης της Ελλάδας, ακόμη και τη λήξη της λιτότητας, ενώ παρουσίασαν την οκταετή παρέμβαση της Ευρώπης στην Ελλάδα ως πρότυπο συνετής ευρωπαϊκής αλληλεγγύης στο “μαύρο πρόβατό” της, μια περίπτωση “αυστηρής αγάπης” που φέρεται να λειτούργησε. Όμως μία πιο προσεκτική ματιά αποκαλύπτει μία διαφορετική πραγματικότητα.

Over the past week, the world’s media have been proclaiming the successful completion of the Greek financial rescue programmemounted in 2010 by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Headlines celebrated the end of Greece’s bailout, even the termination of austerity.

Every so often humanity manages genuinely to surprise itself. Events to which we had previously assigned zero probability push us into what the ancient Greeks referred to as aporia: a state of intense bafflement urgently demanding a new model of the world we live in. The Crash of 2008 was such a moment. Suddenly, the world ceased to make sense in terms of what, a few weeks before, passed as conventional wisdom – even McDonald’s, for goodness’ sake, could not secure an overdraft from Bank of America!