I really liked the interfluidity summary [0], but I would like someone to break down this exchange a bit more for me:

OP:

> With respect to Greece, the precise thing that European elites did to set the current chain of events in motion was to replace private debt with public during the 2010 first “bailout of Greece”. Prior to that event, it was obvious that blame was multipolar. Here are the banks, in France, in Germany, that foolishly lent. Not just to Greece, but to Goldman’s synthetic CDOs and every other piece of idiot paper they could carry with low risk-weights [1]. In 2010, the EU, ECB, and IMF laundered a bailout of mostly French and German banks through the Greek fisc. Cash flowed into Greece only so it could flow out to rickety banks. Now, suddenly, the banks were absolved. There were very few bad loans left on the books of European lenders, everyone was clean, no bad actors at all. Except one. There were the institutions, the “troika”, clearly the good guys, so “helpful” with their generous offer of funds. And then there was Greece. What had been a mudwrestling match, everybody dirty, was transformed into mass of powdered wigs accusing a single filthy penitent (or, when the people with their savings in just-rescued banks decide to be generous, a petulant misbehaving child).

poster "dlr" from the comments:

> I don’t see how this is even close to a fair representation of the 2010-2012 Greek debt restructuring. 199.2b EUR of Greek debt was exchanged for 29.7b notes and 62.4b new Greek bonds. This was a 52% write-down, only using par value, except the new bonds were not valued worth par, because the new coupon was way below market. After the exchange, the new bonds traded at ~25c of new par and 6c of original par. When the EFSF later repurchased bonds from private owners, it paid 11.3b to retire 31.9b of debt. That is, 34c of the new par value of the bonds, or 17c of original par. Including the haircut on the aforementioned notes (which were EFSF notes and worth new par), private creditors ended up with about 25c on the dollar of what they lent. This is not “cash flowing into Greece so it could flow out to rickety banks.” It is the exact opposite. A near complete sovereign wipeout borne by private lenders.

Who took these writedowns?
Paribas, Commerzbank, Dexia, SocGen, RBS, Unicredit, Groupama, HSBC, Metlife, Allianz, Axa, DB, ING, Generali and many more all wrote down and realized losses on between 60-80% of what they lent to Greece. It’s true that some of these banks got liquidity support during the Euro crisis, but the Greek write-downs were ultimately born by the stakeholders of these banks.

In fact, the only banks that were directly bailed out with respect to the Greek debt restructuring were the Greek banks. The largest holders of Greek debt were Greek banks. They were the only institutions who were undoubtedly doomed as a result of losses in the value of Greece’s sovereign dooms, and the stakeholders in those banks, especially depositors were blatantly saved. National Bank of Greece held 13.7b. Piraeus held 9.4b. Alpha held 3.7b. The capital injections, initially 23b euros, meant that Greek depositors were protected from what would otherwise have been inevitable losses due to enormous domestic bank holdings in Greek debt. Foreign banks and private holders actually took losses.

The discussion continues on as people discuss the details, but it gets a bit too jargony to follow. No matter if the Greeks were forgiven 50% or 80% of debt already, it seems clear that the remainder is going to be impossible to pay off, so it doesn't change that much in terms of reactions, but I'm curious what is the truth behind this first 2010 bailout.

I also keep imagining that we're gonna see a replay, with "Greeks" being "non-STEM student loan holders in the US" in the near future, so I'm doubly curious.

[0] http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5965.html

[1] "They knew the Greek state was sketchy. But precisely because it was sketchy, prior to the financial crisis its debt paid slightly higher interest rates than that of safer Eurozone sovereigns. European banking regulations attached zero risk weights to all EU sovereigns, rendering it nearly costless for banks to simply manufacture deposits to purchase sovereign debt."