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Historical context aside, he does have a good point in the end. Greece's credit card is maxed out and it doesn't appear that any amount of restructuring will m

• ChuckMcM 11y ago
  We will certainly see. Given the rhetoric I expect Greece to simply disavow the debt, leave the Euro Zone, and let them figure it out. It isn't like you can repossess a country. The interesting question then is what happens next. Either they recover their economy (at least briefly) because they aren't carrying any sort of debt costs and the rest of the EU does nothing? Look to see Spain and maybe Portugal jump ship as well. The EU freezes them out, basically letting the black market set the value of the drachma, and we see hyper inflation in Greece where the price of everything goes up several hundred percent a year (maybe even a month) like it did in Argentina. Or maybe we see the Russians bail them out and give them a favorable exchange rate to roubles which can then be converted into dollars or euros. That sort of "help" comes with some strings that perhaps the Greek people will put up with, perhaps not. No matter what we'll get to see what happens when a country does the equivalent of filing for bankruptcy. My guess is that Greece will see economic turmoil like the various South American countries for the next 50 years, but its only a guess as I don't think we've been in this sort of situation in Europe since the end of WWII. I think Piketty could have said that without insulting the Germans.