Greece Defaults. What now?

[MikeRox]

Psychotic said:

MikeRox said:

To be fair, isn't this "as a percentage of GDP"? Which has fallen by over a quarter since the banking crisis.

Actually, that's a good point. Still, during the 2008 recession, some countries had the balls to cut back on social spending, why didn't they ?Especially if they already had around 100% GDP of national debt? I don't know, I think they had a lot of time to react and they didn't.

MikeRox said:

However they were in the EU regardless of the Euro and I have a problem with the idea of telling anyone "tough tits, you fucked up deal with it" when we're supposedly all in the same club.

Actually, I can identify with this sentiment a lot. A lot of people around me are Euro-sceptics, but I am a big fan of globalisation and and also creating an international market to rival the US and China economically... I want the Eu to succeed and keep together... so it pains me to say this - it pains me to write them off, but I don't see any other option. I mean what can you do when a member of your group feels entitled to immense sacrifice by everyone else and refuses to even make steps to make sure such a sacrifice wouldn't be completely meaningless? What kind of precedent will we set if we allow someone like Tsipras to basically blackmail Europe with "either you help us almost unconditionally or we will take you with us when we fall"?

Indeed Tsipras has certainly really not helped with this. I do think the requirements set on Greece have been punitive. However I also see the perspective of Greece's economy is incompatible with the Euro.

There is the argument that Greece's presence though, has also helped artificially deflate the value of the Euro to help boost exports for the bigger Eurozone economies though making them far more prosperous than they would have been had Countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy etc no been part of the Euro. That is part of why I have a problem with being so "fuck off and die" towards Greece.

I guess maybe we should be looking at a way to eject Greece from the Euro, but also in a way that cushions the reintroduction of the drachma and doesn't make a "Grexit" so painful for ordinary Greeks?