[coldtea]

The worse estimation of defaulting (by people warning against it) where still better than today's numbers. And defaulting would have started a path towards reconstruction, whereas Greece now is just indefinitely held in life with an "artificial lung".

(And the debt is actually the same than it was when the crisis started, so all the "bailout" did was to save the banks exposed to it using European's people's money, so instead of DB and other private banks now it's owed to ECB, the IMF and so on -- the same debt but under a much worsened infrastructure and economy, so even less chance of ever coming over).

[timrichard]

Which kinda sorta looks like German/French state aid, except that's completely against the rules...

[disgruntledphd2]

It was a bailout of large banks by stealth, much like what happened in Ireland.

Timoty Geithner apocryphally refused to even countenance burning any bondholders in Ireland (or anywhere really) out of the risk of contagion. Now, Ireland has the 3rd highest debt per capita in the world, just after Japan and the US. Note that Japan and the US can print currency, while Ireland cannot.

tl;dr totally a bailout by stealth.

The worst part was that it created this horrible dynamic between different European countries, when really we should just have been blaming the banks.