Yanis Varoufakis is my new Economics Professor

Figuratively speaking, that is.  I just drew this portrait of him and now I want to explain why.

I first liked him when he spoke of dismantling the media oligopolies in Greece.  His interview on that subject hit my radars at the same time as Sun News TV, the conservative mouthpiece in Canada, finally ran out of rich-guy lolly and closed its doors.  The happy feeling I got from that closure primed me to enjoy Varoufakis’ explanation that rich people putting their pocket change into media outlets wasn’t a formula for press freedom, rather quite the opposite.

Varoufakis is the new Greek finance minister who is taking Europe by storm, or at least trying.  He’s the most public face of the Syriza government which pledged to cancel the cutbacks and austerity of the Euro-bailout.  He’s not wearing a tie in the legislature – something which seems like nothing until you realize how rare this is in a Western parliament.  His casual style also helped him catch the eye of German media at a time when he was confronting their government with brick-wall obstinancy around paying back the loans Greece had borrowed under previous governments.  Then he, um, caved sort of.

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