Let Greece go bust

The Greeks lied and cheated their way into the eurozone, says Matthew Lynn — and letting them get away with it through a bailout threatens the euro with collapse

When Greece officially replaced the drachma with the euro on 1 January 2001, nobody was in the mood to mourn the world’s oldest currency. A public holiday was declared for 2 January, ushering in a week of celebrations as the country joined the club of rich European countries. Whatever regrets people might have had about losing a currency with which Alexander the Great was familiar were drowned out by the promise of future prosperity. Backed by low interest rates set in Frankfurt — and the implicit promise that all bills would eventually be settled in Brussels or Berlin — Greece suddenly found it could borrow as much as it wanted without having to worry too much about paying it back.

Last month, the reckoning arrived.