> nobody really knows what had happened if we've let the banks die.
I'm not even an economist, so obviously I have no idea what would have happened (even as is in "they don't really know" but I know even less).
My reasoning is this:
if I remember correctly Greek government bonds were already trading at ~70% of their nominal values two or even three years ago (cannot check, currently on a train along the Rhine with very limited internet access). To me this means, that the banks had already written off ~30 of the value of that bonds, and I bet if we look at their balance sheets we'll see that fact reflected.
I'm not even an economist, so obviously I have no idea what would have happened (even as is in "they don't really know" but I know even less).
My reasoning is this: if I remember correctly Greek government bonds were already trading at ~70% of their nominal values two or even three years ago (cannot check, currently on a train along the Rhine with very limited internet access). To me this means, that the banks had already written off ~30 of the value of that bonds, and I bet if we look at their balance sheets we'll see that fact reflected.