Rambling In The Wilds of My Mind

Not a great deal coming out of the news makes me want to blog these days. Greece does, for example, as a country that has lived beyond its means but seems to expect to keep its luxuries (such as a bloated public service) at the expense of other countries.

Then again, don’t all countries borrow? And who can predict if a country might default on repayments one day?

Banks, as always, seem prepared to lend their depositors’ funds and take risks but bleat if it costs their shareholders any substantial loss.

As a volunteer citizen advisor I see plenty of misery where individual borrowers overcommit themselves and can’t repay their debts to banks or finance companies. The financiers resort to debt collection, asset seizure, and mortgagee sales and the debtors to bankruptcy.

No one, however, seems to be telling the world what will happen if a whole country defaults. Is there a precedent? I don’t follow economics so closely that I know the answer. Do you?