I don't know anything about the specifics, but the debt NEEDS to be paid. Whatever things there are, whatever priorities there are, whatever responsibilities there are, the debt comes number one. If the fucking country literally defaults and declares bankruptcy, then it's going to be an absolute short term and long term disaster.

I'm sure that with the EU behind Greece and just watching Greece's government 24/7 the necessary action is being taken.

routsounmanman said: SamuelRSmith said: I would post something more than this, but what I have to say would probably come off as very cold... so, I'm not going to. (Unless you really want me to ). Go ahead. I'm not wearing earplugs and as I've already stated, i'm no expert in economics. Could someone with some knowledge on the subject enlighten me, why is it so bad to default? Could there have been another way, other than resorting to the IMF for help? Why are things so bad now, we've been running deficits for decades now.

Some would say that defaulting is the good, albiet ultra-painful, way of getting out of the mess:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/greece-bailout-default-opinions-contributors-jeffrey-a-miron.html

Here is an explanation of why things are the way they are: http://www.imakenews.com/ingim01/e_article001744143.cfm

Essentially, Greece may have lied about their deficits to join the Eurozone. Now that everything is out in the light, investors, and external parties aren't putting up with Greek stupidity of having massive deficits, and forcing them to make a choice as to how they are going to fix their situation.

As a libertarian, for my ideologies, it really comes down to the fact that Greece has too many public sector employees with very favorable wages, and not enough private citizens paying the kinds of taxes needed to sustain the employees. Greece should have made a choice - either reduce government workers and throw the nation into unemployment temporarily - or ensure that revenue meet expenses by levying incredibly painful taxes on people that make money.

Deficit spending is showing itself to be the Achilles heel of liberal democracies around the world. There is only so much debt that can be accrued before you have to pay the piper.

Since I know your a private citizen of Greece, that pays taxes and does a lot of great work, I will certainly be praying that you, personally, can make it out of this mess. Although its very sad to see Greece go through this, it may be a net benefit if other countries like Spain, Portugal, the UK and the US learn from your mistakes and get their houses in order before its too late to avert their own Greek catastrophe.

Its not that no one cares...........
Its just that there isn't much they can do

this the worst thing. at a loss for words. i wish you the best of luck.

My country went through something similar in the 80s. Massive public sector, massive subsidies, huge deficits, big government programs etc. You'll get through this if you can get some decent politicians in who are able to do whats best for your country without corruption.

My suggestion is that your government corporatise the public sector operations where applicable so they run with the government as shareholders rather than direct political control that way they cannot act as a vehicle for corruption.

patapon you are amazing

Absolutely false. The reason the US is still #1 is because they have taken up trillions of debt. So if anything, Greece just needs to borrow more! Greatness is born through debt.

Also, don't look for pity here. There are places in far worse crisises (?) than Greece. I haven't seen you post anything about those at all yet.

Mirgro -

The US has half of the debt according to GDP that the Greeks do. I hope your being sarcastic, or else that was a very bad argument.

Correcty me if I'm wrong, but the US debt is still 100% of the US's GDP. I was also not sarcastic at all. The only reason the US is so ahead of everyone else right now is because back in the 80s the US started taking on huge amounts of money. Give 13 trillion to any other country in Europe, and they will be just as "great."

If it hadn't started incurring huge amounts of debt what would have happened is the same thing to the other super power of the time, the one that didn't take on any debt, Russia. We know how that went. For a reference, Russia has only about $80bil, and most of that is post 2000. Just something to think about, and what all this American "greatness" really stems from, it's certainly not the rampant Capitalism that most historically challenged people in the US would have you believe though.

Actually migro from what I've read us debt is like 66% of gdp not 100%,

Thats not to say their debt isn't ridiculously high.

@Greece. I read a report in the paper that 1/4 of all taxes in the entire country aren't paid due to corruption. People and businesses alike pay off government officials so they don't have to pay all of their taxes. On top of that their huge public sector is just unsustainable.

I understand why many Greeks are rioting. I mean it would suck to have welfare cut ad wages cut whilst taxes and being increased. But it needs to be done in order to get the country out of the mess. Being pissed off at the politicians is the right thing to do, but it should be about why they got you into such massive deficits in the first place not about dealing with the problem. I hope that what most of the commotion is about.