[stayjin]

Exactly. I will put a little more PF (political fiction) to make it a little bit more interesting: How about if your "friend" is a drinker and gambler, but happens to have a big fortune, say islands, nature, ancient temples. So you find his girlfriend and start lending her drinking money out of your heart's "goodness" without managing your loan when it is small, just let it grow... Of course your friend gets drinking money and thanks his lucky stars and all his friends for lending him just to have the pleasure of his charm.... Of course you politely ask him to spend half of that money to buy submarines and fighter aircrafts from your shop. Then one day you go and tell him, "you know your debt is so big, me and everybody else were so surprised by the size of your debt, and really you have been only drinking and womanizing, haven't you... So we decided we will not lend you anymore. From now on you are not allowed to drink, but neither to eat, unless of course you sell to us your telecommunication industry at the amount of the next round of drinks, so what do you say?" It works like a charm, your friend starts getting depressed, and gives in... But then maybe he says, "Look I am grateful for all these drinks and all but you can't in your good sense expect me to sell my property so cheaply just because you were giving gifts to my girlfriend right. I will stop drinking, please stop giving gifts to my girlfriend and wait for a while I will give them back to you. Also I noticed you borrow money for 1% and you lend it to me for 5.2%, that is too much for "friends" isn't it, please be a sport and let me repay it to you with 1.5%." What then?

[EDIT] Disclaimer, I am Greek, I have no illusions about the management abilities of my country (sometimes I think we are born without the part of brain responsible for financial planning ;-), but I have strong opinions about the economy of debt, the way it is manipulated by the "market" and it's implications on the life of people. My opinion is biased, of course.

[Uchikoma]

No market "manipulated" Greek dept. The Greek government took more money than they could pay back and mostly spend it on creating fake jobs in the government. The submarine deal is only 1 billion euros, this is not the reason for the hundred of billions of dept. To my knowledge this has not been payed yet. The F-16 deal is 1,5 billion euros, also not the reason for the billions of dept. Especially not"half the money."

It's plain simple, the Greek people voted for a government that took more money than they could pay back and lived great with this. I know it's easier to explain the Greek guilt away in this than face reality.

[stayjin]

Thanks for the reply. To be honest I am not sure about the exact amounts that went to weapons(, nor "Siemens", nor the companies participating in the "Olympic miracle") but I am sure, like you say that they only account for only one part of the debt. I also do not have the slightest intend to justify or excuse us one bit, we get what we deserve. At the very end, people are responsible for what their governments do, if they are not, they do not deserve to be called citizens and nobody will ever treat them as such. On the other hand, I see debt used as a way to extort resources all around the world, and they look strikingly similar. Look what happened in Brazil, in Argentine, in Hungary, in Turkey, in Indonesia... For sure there are reckless governments, but I believe there are institutions that capitalize on their recklessness.