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In reply to the discussion: Larry Summers Advising Biden Campaign on Economic Recovery [View all]Mike 03
(16,616 posts)8. "When Yanis (Varoufakis) met the Prince of Darkness"
This is an extract from Yanis Varoufakis' book, Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europes Deep Establishment Varoufakis was the Greek Minister of Finance during Greece's extreme financial difficulties in around 2015.
The only colour piercing the dimness of the hotel bar was the amber liquid flickering in the glass before him. As I approached, he raised his eyes to greet me with a nod before staring back down into his tumbler of whiskey. I sank onto the plush sofa, exhausted. On cue, his familiar voice sounded imposingly morose. Yanis, he said, you made a big mistake.
In the deep of a spring night a gentleness descends on Washington, DC that is unimaginable during the day. As the politicos, the lobbyists and the hangers-on melt away, the air empties of tension and the bars are abandoned to the few with no reason to be up at dawn and to the even fewer whose burdens trump sleep. That night, as on the previous eighty-one nights, or indeed the eighty-one nights that were to follow, I was one of the latter.
It had taken me fifteen minutes to walk, shrouded in darkness, from 700 19th Street NW, the International Monetary Funds building, to the hotel bar where I was to meet him. I had never imagined that a short solitary stroll in nondescript DC could be so restorative. The prospect of meeting the great man added to my sense of relief: after fifteen hours across the table from powerful people too banal or too frightened to speak their minds, I was about to meet a figure of great influence in Washington and beyond, a man no one can accuse of either banality or timidity.
All that changed with his acerbic opening statement, made more chilling by the dim light and shifting shadows. Faking steeliness, I replied, And what mistake was that, Larry? You won the election! came his answer.
It was 16 April 2015, the very middle of my brief tenure as finance minister of Greece. Less than six months earlier I had been living the life of an academic, teaching at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin while on leave from the University of Athens. But in January my life had changed utterly when I was elected a member of the Greek parliament. I had made only one campaign promise: that I would do everything I could to rescue my country from the debt bondage and crushing austerity being imposed on it by its European neighbours and the IMF. It was that promise that had brought me to this city and with the assistance of my close team member Elena Paraniti, who had brokered the meeting and accompanied me that night to this bar.
Smiling at his dry humour and to hide my trepidation, my immediate thought was, Is this how he intends to stiffen my resolve against an empire of foes? I took solace from the recollection that the seventy-first secretary of the United States Treasury and twenty-seventh president of Harvard is not known for his soothing style.
Determined to delay the serious business ahead of us a few moments more, I signalled to the bartender for a whiskey of my own and said, Before you tell me about my mistake, let me say, Larry, how important your messages of support and advice have been in the past weeks. I am truly grateful. Especially as for years I have been referring to you as the Prince of Darkness.
Unperturbed, Larry Summers replied, At least you called me a prince. I have been called worse.
In the deep of a spring night a gentleness descends on Washington, DC that is unimaginable during the day. As the politicos, the lobbyists and the hangers-on melt away, the air empties of tension and the bars are abandoned to the few with no reason to be up at dawn and to the even fewer whose burdens trump sleep. That night, as on the previous eighty-one nights, or indeed the eighty-one nights that were to follow, I was one of the latter.
It had taken me fifteen minutes to walk, shrouded in darkness, from 700 19th Street NW, the International Monetary Funds building, to the hotel bar where I was to meet him. I had never imagined that a short solitary stroll in nondescript DC could be so restorative. The prospect of meeting the great man added to my sense of relief: after fifteen hours across the table from powerful people too banal or too frightened to speak their minds, I was about to meet a figure of great influence in Washington and beyond, a man no one can accuse of either banality or timidity.
All that changed with his acerbic opening statement, made more chilling by the dim light and shifting shadows. Faking steeliness, I replied, And what mistake was that, Larry? You won the election! came his answer.
It was 16 April 2015, the very middle of my brief tenure as finance minister of Greece. Less than six months earlier I had been living the life of an academic, teaching at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin while on leave from the University of Athens. But in January my life had changed utterly when I was elected a member of the Greek parliament. I had made only one campaign promise: that I would do everything I could to rescue my country from the debt bondage and crushing austerity being imposed on it by its European neighbours and the IMF. It was that promise that had brought me to this city and with the assistance of my close team member Elena Paraniti, who had brokered the meeting and accompanied me that night to this bar.
Smiling at his dry humour and to hide my trepidation, my immediate thought was, Is this how he intends to stiffen my resolve against an empire of foes? I took solace from the recollection that the seventy-first secretary of the United States Treasury and twenty-seventh president of Harvard is not known for his soothing style.
Determined to delay the serious business ahead of us a few moments more, I signalled to the bartender for a whiskey of my own and said, Before you tell me about my mistake, let me say, Larry, how important your messages of support and advice have been in the past weeks. I am truly grateful. Especially as for years I have been referring to you as the Prince of Darkness.
Unperturbed, Larry Summers replied, At least you called me a prince. I have been called worse.
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2017/jun/12/when-yanis-met-prince-darkness-extract-adults-room
This is a pretty chilling story, if you haven't heard it.
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Yeah, it's too bad the Bloomberg article framed this as a Bernie/Warren vs Biden thing, when it
WhiskeyGrinder
Apr 2020
#4
There is nothing wrong with capitalism as long as there is regulation. He made some stupid
still_one
Apr 2020
#22
Agreed. He is just using him as an outside advisor on the current economic situation. He isn't
still_one
Apr 2020
#31
and based on Biden's recent statements on student debt, as you stated, no doubt Warren is part of
still_one
Apr 2020
#33
Do you mean besides the fact that he's a misogynist disaster capitalist whose advice during
WhiskeyGrinder
Apr 2020
#3
Which is also fueled the rise of right wing populist movements like the Tea Party and Trump.
Yavin4
Apr 2020
#7
Bernstein is also advising him as part of the team. But the fact that Summers is still in the mix
WhiskeyGrinder
Apr 2020
#10
I should have read the article, but my first reaction to Summers name was to vomit a little.
CrispyQ
Apr 2020
#12
Yes, beating Trump is the priority, but preventing another Trump is the next highest priority.
Yavin4
Apr 2020
#21
Larry Summers is awful but if anyone read that Bloomberg piece, they'd know Biden's being advised by
Cha
Apr 2020
#38
Exactly. "Normal" is what got us here in the first place; I'm not interested in "going back" to it.
WhiskeyGrinder
Apr 2020
#26
Larry Summers was a close adviser in both Clinton's and Obama's administrations. I trust....
George II
Apr 2020
#37