[jayko]

I do fancy the moral superiority exerted by some against the Greek populace profiting by a bad line of credit.

Do they also protest German and French banks betting on Greek bonds that yielded very high interest rates? When you own a financial instrument with great upside it means it also carries a lot of risk. So, according to some, profiting from high interest rates is dandy but when it's time to pay the piper (your borrower made YOUR risk materialise) they don't want to get bankrupt, just transfer back the risk you took in the form of debt.

And of course the loaned money is not used to re-invigorate the local economy. It is going back into the French & German economies because the local economy of Greece is destroyed and their companies go in and undercut the local competition. e.g That's how shit-show supermarket chains like LIDL wiped out of existence very solid Greek supermarket chains that existed and were profitable for multiple decades before the financial crisis, but then had to do mergers or shut-down. Genius plan. And that's why Greece didn't deceive anybody to get into the Eurozone - the members just looked the other way.

The Greeks should have had defaulted and let the creditors who where profiting all those years from junk bonds (because that's what Greek government bonds were) take the hit. They would have recovered much better by now.

Finally, it's bizarre to me how many people still believe that governments represent the 'people'. No they don't, they represent their friendly neighbourhood bankster - as long as they get a good cut of the money - and the special interests which fund elected politician campaigns. Greek people preferred a default over loan bail-outs from the start. They protested heavily and in the majority but were completely ignored. Numerous MPs had the audacity to admit that they never even read the terms of the bailout. As the great George Carlin said, "They are a big club - and you ain't in it buddy"