When you're lending out billions of dollars, you don't take the debtor's statements at face value. You do very thorough due diligence, and employ very capable people to do it for you. There is no excuse for Deutsche Bank, et al, not to have known exactly how tenuous the strength and solvency of the Greek economy were.
The notion that no-one knew the Greek government was lying about the state of their economy until it was too late is ludicrous on its face.
Just a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period. If you don't pay them back you're a morally deficient scoundrel. If you're ever bankrupt then the legal system will permanently brand you. German economics is a mix of Austrian school economics and strict morals.
It doesn't excuse the largely international banks a la Deutsche, but it does explain the Germanic outrage.
There shouldn't have been /any/ debt after WWI (except to Belgium, who didn't ask to be a battle field in the self defense of Germany).
Russia, France, Britain, and the US should have paid reparations to Germany, not the other way around.
Why? Because Germany /didn't/ start the war. It just ended up as one of the losers.
Germany had huge territorial losses after both wars, parts of Germany were under forceful occupation for a long time afterwards, and they paid heavily in terms of manufacturing equipment and money afterwards. I'd say they paid.
>Just a heads-up that the concept that the creditors must accept risk is a very anglo-saxon perspective. The German view is that debts are to be paid back, period.
It's neither Anglo-Saxon nor German. It's a creditor perspective.
The same perspective that brought us debtor's prisons, and even (in Roman times), the notion of bankruptcy meaning "selling yourself into slavery".
The notion that no-one knew the Greek government was lying about the state of their economy until it was too late is ludicrous on its face.