Greece gears up for tough reforms

[SamuelRSmith]

Mr Khan said:

SamuelRSmith said:
How can you call "writing down 107 billion Euros" not a default? They've just defaulted on 107 billion Euros (for all intents and purposes). This is the second time this has happened, too.

In legal terms it works similarly to negotiating away credit card debt (not negotiating completely away, but lumping your payments and reducing some of the load outright). The idea is that if both parties agree, it isn't a default, because this allows them to choose which debts to annul, rather than a disorderly default where no-one would have any idea of what would and wouldn't end up actually getting paid.

Which is why I mean "for all intents and purposes". The idea is that, if they didn't have the write down, they would have had to default. Creditors lose out either way.