Will Italy default on its debt?

[SamuelRSmith]

Silver-Tiger said:

darkknightkryta said:
I wonder when all the counties in the world will realize they're all in debt and just wipe everything clean.

It is not the goal of a country to have zero debts. Countries NEED to make debts to make investments. Debts are the engine of the countries' economies.  What essentially happened in Greece, Italy and other EU countries is that the debts went over the country GDP (over 100% of that) and THAT is what should never happen. I can't comment much further on it, though, because I don't have knowlegde on that matter. I'm sure there are other users who have done way more research than me on that matter.

The problem with Greece and others is not the amount of debt, it's the leverage on the debt. That is, there's too much debt in relation to savings, and the debt was made in too riskier areas. This happened due to too much Government intervention in the economy (setting interest rates, running deficits, engaging in market-controlling policies).

I'm talking about private debt, here. Public debt (or, government debt) is just cancerous to the economy, and there is no moral reason for it. Much of Europe's (and the USA's... and Japan's) problems have come from too much public debt, and from converting private debt into public debt (through the various bailout programs).