A Pain in the Athens

A Pain in the Athens Why Greece Isn't to Blame for the Crisis By Mark Blyth We’ve never understood Greece because we have refused to see the crisis for what it was—a continuation of a series of bailouts for the financial sector that started in 2008 and that rumbles on today. It’s so much easier to blame the Greeks and then be surprised when they refuse to play along with the script.https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-07/pain-athens?cid=nlc-twofa-20150709&sp_mid=49066558&sp_rid=bWljaGVsZXRrZWFybmV5QGdtYWlsLmNvbQS2   G(reece)2K How to Contain Athens' Economic Problems By Brendan Simms The European Union provided emergency bailouts for Greece, writing down a substantial proportion of the debt in return for commitments to reform state and economy. To be on the safe side, though, European officials and banks have spent the last five years conducting the financial equivalent of what the Y2K teams did, quarantining Greece so that any fallout could be safely contained and a G2K avoided. Recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed that this had been achieved and that Europe was now “much stronger” than when the Greek crisis had first exploded in 2010.https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/greece/2015-07-06/greece2k?cid=nlc-twofa-20150709&sp_mid=49066558&sp_rid=bWljaGVsZXRrZWFybmV5QGdtYWlsLmNvbQS2