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by dmos62 350 days ago
Greece underreported its debt until 2009: i.e. it borrowed too much while lying about how much it's already borrowed. That's the main difference between Greece on the one hand and Italy, Portugal on the other, in my eyes. Italy and Portugal too suffered a public debt crises, but they weren't so blatant about it. I sympathize with the common Greek man, and I wish their crises had been managed with more success, but I also don't feel especially interested in bankrolling Greek policies that led to this crises.
1 comments

I dunno. Pretty sure creditors aren't innocent little old ladies. They're financial killers and knew the situation but also knew they had Germany and the Troika behind them to save them if things went south (as they did). It was win-win for them. The economy miraculously grows: win! the economy sours: win!
Sovereign debtors also knew that them being part of the Eurozone gave them better borrowing rates because creditors perceived Eurozone as low risk. Both the creditors and the debtors believed that they won't chaotically default because of the Eurozone, because that would endanger the Eurozone. If that were all, the creditor and the debtor would be equally at fault. But, when you add the underreporting by the debtor, that's different. Now, I don't see how you can make a case for equal responsibility, and the creditor being more at fault doesn't make any sense to me.