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comment by BeautifullyWeird
BeautifullyWeird  ·  3429 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Greece - how Europe betrayed their initial ideals

I don't think I really grasped just how much blame Greece's creditors bore in this clusterfuck until I read through that article. Banks (mostly German and French) knew damn well what a horribly high credit risk Greece is due to its sketchy as fuck government, regardless of any zero risk weightings the EU tries to assign them. Lends them money anyway because of the returns they get through higher interest rates. Greece defaults (what a fucking surprise!). ECB and IMF bail out French and German banks by giving Greece money to repay loans to said banks, turning private debts into public debts. Banks come out clean as a whistle with a tidy profit to boot, and all blame is placed on Greece. This feels a lot like what happened with the US housing crisis, where the banks' fuckups were transferred to the taxpayers.