Grexit time?

It’s time for Greece to exit the euro, if not the EU, writes Simon Jenkins in the Guardian:

Sometimes the small voice of economics should rise above the shrieking hysterics of politics. The laws of bankruptcy were invented by the Victorians not to stick plaster over capitalism’s wounds. Insolvency and limited liability lay at the core of commercial enterprise. Borrower and lender alike had to accept risk for capitalism to thrive. Greece within the eurozone was allowed to borrow riskily and was lent to riskily. Any fool (except a eurofool) knew it would end in disaster.

The IMF last week admitted Greece’s debts were “unsustainable”. But such is the political arthritis now afflicting Europe’s “technocratic” rulers that they ignored the fact. They concentrate on their one concern: somehow extending Greece’s repayments so German, French and British banks could have even larger loans underpinned. It is bankers, not Greeks, who are being “bailed out”. They want Greek taxpayers to go on paying interest even if the principal is as beyond reach as a tsarist bond.

Read his piece here.

Also Eduardo Porter’s recent New York Times piece on Germany’s own debt write-down after World War II.