Reply #7: Yes and No

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I am with you... the whole Greek crisis is $140 billion and it seems like the tail wagging to dog.

The threat isn't so much to other nations as it is to European banks. ($140 billion is a lot for a bank.)

And if the Greek debt is largely forgiven then Spain and Portugal will want the same deal Greece gets.

Most importantly, though, if Greece defaults then it changes expectations about nations with comparable fiscal situations.

And there are currency problems. If fixing Greece affects the Euro that affects the trade balances of all the Euro nations.

(If Greece was not on the Euro nobody would care about this. They could be handled in isolation)

I don't pretend to understand it all but I know that in the 1880s a terrible recession in Europe was caused by the failure of a bank in Ohio, USA.