I feel like existing debt is a bit of a red herring in discussion of the crisis. Yes, Greece has a lot of debt, but as a consequence of the previous bailout, t

I feel like existing debt is a bit of a red herring in discussion of the crisis. Yes, Greece has a lot of debt, but as a consequence of the previous bailout, that debt has very long maturity and low interest, so it doesn't actually cost that much to service. The actual issue is that Greece has a huge primary deficit (and always has). Germany et all are disinclined to continue funding that deficit forever, which is entirely understandable (why should German taxpayers pay for both German and Greek services?) This is the actual problem. Writing off the existing debt does nothing to solve this.