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Comment by Svip | Hacker News Reader

I will concede that. However, I doubt he was speaking about the creditors in a nice manner. And regardless, it certainly wasn't his first diplomatic gaffe in his tenure as finance minister.

However, if his words are commonly misrepresented, then he should be more careful when speaking publicly. Part of being a politician, and particularly a minister, means your every word will be scrutinised in every way.

While he definitely had the ability as an economist, he did not when it came to being a politician nor a diplomat. But his resignation seems to confirm that he himself realises this.

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There's something to be said for not pussy-footing around imbeciles.

If one considers their creditors imbeciles (as one might fairly do in this case), it becomes an open question where they plan to get money from in order to continue? Even if they go bankrupt, they have to keep getting money from somewhere.

A sovereign nation do not have to get the money from anywhere, unless one is stuck in thinking in terms of commodity money.

You're right, they have to get goods from somewhere. The currency situation is due to the imbalance between what Greece produces on the world market vs. what it consumes.

Their government can certainly print money endlessly, but it's like issuing more stock: it doesn't just make the value of that country go up, it makes the value of its stock (money) go down proportionately.

So the fact remains that Greece won't be able to buy all the things it wants without outside cash. And who is going to give it any now? If you just print money without limit, you'll soon find that there's nothing to buy with that money due to inflation.

Maybe they can copy Argentina, but when their finance minister's exit speech is basically "haha, later suckers!" I don't have high hopes.

There is also the exchange rate aspect.

If their currency were to lose value, their exports would become cheaper in relation to others.

This in turn would drive up exports.

Right now the euro is trading pretty much on par with USD.

Not likely that this is beneficial for the Greek economy, as it seems very dependent on farming and raw material extraction.

Or insulting the type of people who would let personal insults dictate their decisions affecting millions.

Their room for manoeuvre is ultimately determined by their voters, most of whom have realized by now what little regard Syriza (and most of Greece) have for them.

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