Obama told the former Greek finance minister that 'austerity sucks'

Obama, Varoufakis said, had told him that he didn't envy him. (In fact, many politicians surely do envy circumstances where there's so little to lose, professionally, by acting on long-held beliefs in exactly the way demanded of them by a clear-voiced electorate.) Varoufakis told Obama that things were tough: "You inherited a mess when you came to office, but at least you had your central bank behind you. We inherited a mess and we have a central bank" — the European Central Bank — "trying to choke us."According to Varoufakis, Obama replied, "Don't underestimate how tough it was for me," adding that bailing out Wall Street was "contrary to my politics" and "political poison." He urged Varoufakis to "swallow bitter stuff." (The White House declined to comment about the conversation.) [The New Yorker]

Obama showed more solidarity than Varoufakis was expecting. "I know — austerity sucks," Obama said. ("He used those words. Very un-Presidential.") According to Varoufakis, the President was referring less to austerity's unpleasantness than to its ineffectiveness. Obama meant that austerity "doesn't work — it creates misery, and it's self-perpetuating, and it's self-defeating." [The New Yorker]