Earlier quoted context omitted.
Geesh. I'm no Greek and not fond of Syriza, but god damn, the brainwashing is strong here. a) fraud the state's accountings: True, but the difference was minimal (2.7% or so to 3.07%, and by fraud you mean they accounted for the expenses on arrival and not when ordering, not cook your books). Also, this was well known by all the other countries and none of them made a peep at the time b) get as many as you can before…
This post has no connection with reality, I have no clue why it's upvoted. a) Regarding the state accounting fraud: first of all, using the past tense ("was") is misleading. As of last year, Greece was still cooking its books[0]. It remains to be seen if they have actually stopped. You say the difference was minimal. When? When they brought in Georgiou to fix the Greek statistics service, the 2009 deficit was revised…
a) you are right. I was only referring to the pre-euro accounting. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
b+c) I don't know the exact figure, but if I remember correctly, private loses were about 20% only.
"One estimate is that Greece actually subscribed to €156bn worth of new debt in order to get €206bn worth of old debt to be written off, meaning the trumpeted write-down of €110bn by the banks and others is more than double the true figure of €50bn that was truly written off. Taxpayers are now liable for more than 80% of Greece's debt.[219] James Mackintosh, Investment Editor at the Financial Times, noted a JPMorgan Chase estimate that "only €15bn of €410bn total 'aid' to Greece" actually went into the country's economy, the rest having been handed over to its creditors. " [1]
d) Yes, they can't 'force' any government to do as they say, but if they don't, they don't give them the money they need. They aren't open to negotiating at all. They want the gov. to sell profitable businesses and to reduce social spending. That is their 'sensible' way to deal with the issue. I don't have first hand experience of what they did in Greece, but if what they tried to do in Portugal is any indication, it was a loser's game from the start. They didn't care about economic recovery or sustainable growth. No, they were repo men trying to get as much of the money back as possible. Which is fine, it's their job and the countries accepted the money, but then, not for one second please tell me how these countries are lazy and spenders, and the damn hard worker Northern brethren has to act like a parent. Let's not forget Germany were one of the first countries to go over the 3% deficit target and got scot free through political pressure [2] [3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis#An...
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/nov/25/theeuro.poli... - sorry, its the guardian, but you can google other sources
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_and_Growth_Pact#Refor...