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Comment by sampo | Hacker News Reader

Italy and Greece have always had corruption. But they didn't always have recession.

Countries get recessions when they pile double-digit deficits and triple-digit sovereign debts hidden from the world with years of accounting fraud, and suddenly banks cease lending them the money they need to keep burning through the cash they don't have.

Greek debt crisis begun when they had 160% of GDP debt, after years of recession, "bailing" packets and the heroic efforts by EU/IMF they now are at 190% of debt. Great success.

You're somehow leaving out the fact that Greece's debt/GDP ratio went up in good part because the true extent of Greece's sovereign debt and structural deficit was uncovered after the inception of thr bailout program, which by itself led to a higher debt ratio.

Also, having to reign in a double-digit deficit by cutiting the state's chronic overspending also lowered the GDP that was kept artificially high by injecting into the greek economy all that borrowed cash.

So, it's disgenuous to insinuate that Greece's bailout program caused any problem when you're actually referring to the natural consequences of:

1) finding out the true extent of Greece's overspending by fixing their accounting incoherences

2) the impossibility of continuing overspending well over 10% of the nation's GDP.

But they did pass ever higher, unsustainable debts to the next generation, which eventually forced them to face reality and stop paying for the corruption with seed corn.

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