[jernfrost]

I think you simply have to borrow money, or pay of debts with inflation. From what I've read the much maligned inflation policy of the weimar republic was actually fairly successful, despite the imagery of people buying bread with buckets of money.

Greece could not do this because they were in the Euro area, and had not control over their own money. It seems Iceland which controlled their own currency handled the economic problems much better. Although it is hard to compare as Iceland is a pretty well run country, while Greece struggles with basic stuff like simply collecting taxes.

The best is of course to have the discipline to save a lot of money in good years to spend in bad years. For my native Norway this was the situation which is why we basically didn't feel the 2008 downturn at all. We had save a lot of oil money over many years and just spent more of it.

The US too weathered the storm not too badly through the expansionary policies of Obama. While the austerity measures in Europe totally screwed up several economies.