Outrider,

As most of the private banks debts in Greece have liquidated and replaced with debt to the EU bank, the only damage would be to european tax payers.

Secondly if Greece defaults, they may well create their own currency, but will be faced with the problem that it will be worth nothing outside the country, no one will lend any Greek institution one cent, and the government will still be faced with paying pensions and salaries with far less tax revenue.

In short, whatever they may think of the austerity measures now, a few months after default most Greeks will be looking back to now as the good times.

What if? Well we can be sure of one thing for Greece! It will get a lot worse before it gets better!

And no amount of street marches and voiced opposition is going to change any of that! Only ever prolong it or make worse!

Simply put, there is a time limit on just how long any nation can live way beyond their means; or be ultra generous with other folk's money; or just ignore huge waste; and or, kick the debt can down the road!

Unfortunately it's the rich debt laden speculators (and their servants) who sin and the poor who pay all the penalties!

Even so, a hugely mismanaged and probably overpopulated Greece needs to return to the drachma, if only to allow it to use quantitative easing to ease some of the pain?

Those who can get out now should!

Be ready for an exodus of good looking Greeks looking for Australian spouses?

I mean, even an Aussie pensioner, will look like a millionaire in fair comparison to many unemployed Greeks!?

Where there's a (freshly minted) will, there's always a (freshly minted) relative! And then, (freshly minted) relative reunion?
Rhrosty.

far to many years of Labour/Greens type spending.

Perhaps you should all think again, with this just in:-

"two months ago Greek Zoi Konstantopoulou, speaker of the Greek parliament and a SYRIZA member, said she had established a new “Truth Committee on Public Debt” whose purposes was to “investigate how much of the debt is “illegal” with a view to writing it off.”

Moments ago, this committee released its preliminary findings, and here is the conclusion from the full report:

"All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious."

Greece has effectively just declared that it will no longer have to default on its IMF or any other debt simply because that debt was not legal to begin with, i.e. it was “odious.”

Interesting times ahead me thinks!

Look Michael. Here we have a scenario where the world can look on in amusement when a bunch of idiots get themselves in so much trouble that there seems to be no way out.

One suspects that all of those smart German bankers knew that the billions that they were lending the profligate Greeks would never be paid back, but the bankers who approved the loans probably got a percentage of the loan as a reward for making the deal. As far as the German banks are concerned, they deserve to lose hundreds of billions of Euros, and next time they had better reign in their lending to people who are welfare dependent wastrels and who will never repay.

The Greeks appear to be a people who would make ideal Australian Labor voters, which in fact they already are. They seem to think that the best way to get through life is for somebody else to pay for their upkeep. Greece has become another Detroit. Any smart and productive Greeks have fled Greece long ago, as taxes on the productive have become prohibitive to starting any industry that will employ anybody. So the trick is for Greeks to get on the public payroll where the money presumably never stops flowing. Add to that, the aversion of Greeks to paying any taxes and sooner or later, the money runs out. It is just like Margaret Thatcher warned, sooner or later, socialists run out of other people's money to spend.

The Greeks were once noted for their intelligence, but it seems like all of the smart ones have immigrated. Amusingly, the stupid Greeks have elected a government which wants to maintain the fiction that they need never repay their loans, and that the European banks will lend them money forever.

That is not going to happen. Greece must eventually leave the euro zone, because Greeks are intrinsically different in their attitudes to Germans. European Union is dependent upon a false premise, that all races and ethnicities are equal in every way. Once again, that premise has been proven wrong.

When Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson was asked whether or not other countries – Europe in particular – would succeed with Iceland’s “let the banks fail” policy, he stated the following:

“Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit, their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity. People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run.”

It seems that the bond holders are petrified that another country might default, - and get away with it, as did Iceland. Debt is created by central and private banks to create wealth for themselves. When push comes to shove , all they offer is numbers on paper.