>I never said borrowing was wrong. I said borrowing without having means to pay back is wrong. You almost make it look as though Greece did nothing wrong in bor

>I never said borrowing was wrong. I said borrowing without having means to pay back is wrong. You almost make it look as though Greece did nothing wrong in borrowing, but now Germany and alike are committing a huge sin in not bailing them out. Actually it's a long and convoluted history. Do you know for example that when the newly independent state of Greece was established (after fighting for liberation from the Ottoman empire), Germany (the Bavarian state) appointed a king and cabinet of it's own there? The new state, being very poor and having an immediate need for money to bootstrap itself (for the army, to build infrastructure, etc), got a series of loans from abroad with very ominous terms, worse than usury that they had to accept, because there where no other sources of income at that early state. The terms were like you get only 60% of the actual loan value and leave the rest 40% as insurance against not paying --but you have to repay everything plus interest. Even those loans were embezzled in large part by the bavarian cabinet (and Greeks connected to it), leaving like 10-20% of the actual loan to the state. So, those were some of the starting steps of the new Greek state, 180 years before. Now, in the WWII, Germany not only invaded Greece and destroyed it's infrastructure, but also took a loan (Germany FROM Greece), amounting to something like 1/5 of the current debt in today's money. When I say "took a loan", actually the appointed government of the occupying German forces gave them one, it's not like the Greek people approved it. Then, after the war, they refused to pay the recuperations...