The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Just one

guest today, a long interview with Behind the News veteran Janus Verafakis.

He's here to talk about his new book, Adults in the Room, My Battle with the European and American

Deep Establishment, just published by Farra Straus and Giroux. If anyone's interested, I have a review of

Varofacus's book on the Baffler's website, the Bafler.com.

Janus Varifocas, who'd been living a peaceful life as a professor of economics, became

the finance minister of Greece in January 2015.

I was six years into the European debt crisis. of Greece in January 2015.

I was six years into the European debt crisis after several rounds of austerity had been

imposed on Greece and the other countries in the European periphery, the so-called pigs,

Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.

Though the austerity, successive rounds of deep cuts in government spending in countries already in

depression, was supposed to lead to recovery, it led only to deeper misery.

In Greece, all the years of austerity

had led to the collapse of the established parties and a victory in the January 2015

elections by Theresa a Greek acronym for a name that translates as coalition of the radical left.

Though its leader, Alexis Cypress, had served several terms in parliament, none of its principles

can be described as seasoned political prose.

In the years leading up to his ministerial role, Verifoches had become a prominent critic of the orthodoxy that was impoverishing the European periphery.

He argued that the European Central Bank should finance debt relief for the troubled peripheral states and backstop the continent's ailing banks.

At the same time the European Authority should invest heavily in the infrastructure of the crisis countries.

A few decades ago that would have been seen as a respectable Keynesian prescription, but in this era of neoliberalism it seemed otherworldly.

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