I am of two minds on this. The Greeks down the years have been remarkably improvident with the public purse. However much of the “bailout” is not directed at “saving Greece” or helping Greeks in any way but at avoiding making those bankers, investors, bankers, other governments, oh, and did I mention bankers? foolish enough to have lent vast sums of money to improvident Greek government take a haircut on their bad investments. Should Greece repay its debts? Yes, but quite frankly, if you were stupid enough to lend money to Greece, you deserve to be paid back in new drachmas that start out nominally worth a Euro, and will promptly collapse in value down to a level that will make a Greek export and tourism economy based on cheap labor viable.
Thing is. Greece owes a lot of money to the European Union. Greece says it doesn’t want to pay it back, or, wants loans forgiven. Germany says, pay back the money you borrowed from our taxpayers. Greece says, thribbit ...
If you look back at 2008...when Iceland defaulted, they refused to pay. It was to the tune of roughly 85-to-90 billion dollars. Huge amount of hostility brewed for a year in Uk and Germany...but it did not matter...they refused to pay. Big losses throughout Europe and harsh times in Iceland for at least three years, then they just marched on.
I admit...Greece in heavier debt (probably over 300 billion dollars). Lot of private citizens who have cash in the bank within Greece will lose their capital in a matter of days. But I can envision the whole Icelandic scenario occurring here.