Schäuble’s plan for Europe

This is just an announcement of an article that apparently hasn't come out yet. It would be better to wait for the actual piece.

Copy of my reply to his question:<p>As a German, and a worker in the tech industry, Schäuble has proven only one thing in the past, that he is an ignorant and stubborn man, who completely lacks a broader view of the consequences of the things he tries to put in motion, but insists of pushing horrible things that he thinks help germany. (Previously: Trying to allow German army activities within the borders of Germany, trying to implement and make legal a government-sponsored trojan that he claimed would be able to infiltrate <i>every</i> computer.)<p>As far as i am concerned he is only continuing his plan of trying to put Germany over everything, regardless what kind of damage he does or even of whether he even does any good in the process.<p>--<p>I don&#x27;t know if Yanis will be able to effect any positive change anymore at this point, but if even a few people learn that this is a horribly nationalist plan by a horribly nationalist man, then i praise his efforts.<p>Edit:<p>Just to make it clear how horrible Schäuble as a human is:<p><pre><code> - committed tax fraud on 100_000 DM by a gun trader - tried to make it legal for the german army to operate in german borders in case terrorists try to attack ports with ships as bombs - tried to make it legal for the german army to shoot down passenger planes in case of terrorists - tried to make legal a government trojan that would breach all privacy rights, but is also impossible </code></pre> Now he&#x27;s minister of finance and seems to be successfully throwing a country out of the EU.

Sticking to your validly formed opinion, no matter what, and never compromising in the slightest is beneficial in academia, because you need grit in convincing all those new students of your theories, and your results probably came from decades of work. Similarly, diplomacy is not too important, at least as soon as you have tenure.<p>While being a politician and dealing with other countries means lots and lots of (sometimes bad) compromises and a lot of diplomacy.<p>Varoufakis never cared for that. He constantly insulted the people on the other side, with the simple &quot;excuse&quot; that they are filthy politicians and he&#x27;s a noble warrior for the common good. He didn&#x27;t care for established procedures and common courtesy (like recording others without their knowledge or consent), everything was fair game to him.<p>That&#x27;s why he was such a terrible representative of Greece. And all his petty attacks after the fact don&#x27;t serve Greece in the slightest, they only feed his ego and his fans.<p>I would have expected him to keep silent for a while, in order to help Mr Tsipras reach a solution.

&quot;You have to be willing to blow things up in order to be effective in negotiating strategy.&quot; Y. Varoufakis on &quot;Behind the news&quot; podcast, 2014.<p>Varoufakis is using classic populist rhetoric:<p>- Simplisitc notion of the cause of the problem by an international cabal of bankers and capitalists.<p>- Us-vs-them, good-vs-evil manichean worldview.<p>- Simplistic notion of how problems can be solved.<p>- Strong and resolute mobilisation against &quot;unnaturally&quot; divisive parties and querulous organised interest groups that want to destroy &quot;us&quot;.<p>- Varoufakis cast himself as representatives of the comman person, of an betrayed and neglected Greek public.<p>- He&#x27;s effectively capitalising on lingering anti-german sentiment, and personalising it in the figure of Schauble.