Facts and figures about Greece

Simon Johnson serves up a grim but realistic report:

…Every 1 percentage point rise in interest rates means Greece needs to send an additional 1.2 percent of GDP abroad to those bondholders. 

What if Greek interest rates rise to, say, 10% – a modest premium for a country which has the highest external public debt/GDP ratio in the world, which continues (under the so-called “austerity” program) to refinance even the interest on that debt without actually paying a centime out of its own pocket, and which is struggling to establish any sustained backing from the rest of Europe?  Greece would need to send a total of 12% of GDP abroad per year, once they rollover the existing stock of debt to these new rates (nearly half of Greek debt will roll over within 3 years). 

This is simply impossible and unheard of for any long period of history.  German reparation payments were 2.4 percent of GNP during 1925-32, and in the years immediately after 1982, the net transfer of resources from Latin America was 3.5 percent of GDP (a fifth of its export earnings).  Neither of these were good experiences.

On top of all this Greece’s debt, even under the IMF’s mild assumptions, is on a non-convergent path even with the perceived “austerity” measures.  Bubble math is easy.  Hide all the names and just look at the numbers.  If debt looks like it will explode as a percent of GDP, then a spectacular collapse is in the cards.

Addendum: Paul Krugman comments.