There is something uncanny about the resemblance regarding the recent ‘Greek case’ and its relation to other ‘turmoils’; different times, ‘other territories’. Therefore, set one after the other, two dissimilar moments and three not aligning expert positions (in their ideological stand). This just to check the old riddle: 1+1 is not always 2; hence (as we all know) economic policies are not only about facts but mainly related to power or something else.
One of the texts was written decades ago, nonetheless it sounds as relevant as if it was published not far away in time. The other texts are contemporary, nevertheless applicable to five decades ago. What does it mean? Are not we facing the same death-lock over and over again?
What lays ahead is a time for possibility but also pragmatism. To understand that the weight that the greeks had undertaken on their shoulders will crush them with out solidarity (already is), easy to say difficult to execute. Then, it is not an European moment so to say, there is something bigger on stake.

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This text was written in 1971 by the intelectual and novelist Eduardo Galeano in 1960 (you could find an english version below):

(…) La región vive el fenómeno que los economistas
llaman la explosión de la deuda. Es el círculo vicioso de la
estrangulación: los empréstitos aumentan y las inversiones se suceden y en consecuencia crecen los pagos por amortizaciones, intereses, dividendos y otros servicios; para cumplir con esos pagos se recurre a nuevas inyecciones de capital extranjero, que generan compromisos mayores, y así sucesivamente. El servicio de la deuda devora una proporción creciente de los ingresos por exportaciones, de por sí impotentes –por obra del inflexible deterioro de los precios– para financiar las importaciones necesarias; los nuevos préstamos se hacen imprescindibles, como el aire al pulmón, para que los países puedan abastecerse. Una quinta parte de las exportaciones se dedicaba, en 1955, al pago de amortizaciones, intereses y utilidades de inversiones; la proporción continuó creciendo y está ya próxima al estallido. En 1968, los pagos representaron el 37 por ciento de las exportaciones (…)
The region is experiencing the phenomenon that economists call the “debt explosion.” It is a strangulating vicious circle. Loans increase, investments follow investments, so that payments grow for amortisation, interest, dividends, and other services. To pay off these debts, new injections of foreign capital are resorted to, generating bigger strong commitments, and so on and on. Servicing the debt consumes a growing proportion of income from exports, which in any case, due to the unremitting fall of prices, cannot finance the necessary imports; new loans to enable the countries to supply themselves thus become as indispensable as air to the lungs. In 1955 one-fifth of exports went for amortisation, interest, and profit on investments; the proportion has kept growing and is approaching the explosion point. In 1968 these payments amounted to 37 percent of exports(…)

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This text was publish not long ago by an electronic publication. It is an interview to the now super-star economist Thomas Piketty:
(…) Absolutely not. This is neither a reason for France, nor Germany, and especially not for Europe, to be happy. I am much more afraid that the conservatives, especially in Germany, are about to destroy Europe and the European idea, all because of their shocking ignorance of history.
Exactly. After the war ended in 1945, Germany’s debt amounted to over 200% of its GDP. Ten years later, little of that remained: public debt was less than 20% of GDP. Around the same time, France managed a similarly artful turnaround. We never would have managed this unbelievably fast reduction in debt through the fiscal discipline that we today recommend to Greece. Instead, both of our states employed the second method with the three components that I mentioned, including debt relief. Think about the London Debt Agreement of 1953, where 60% of German foreign debt was cancelled and its internal debts were restructured (…)
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This text was published in an electronic economic newspaper last weekend. The quotations came from the former IMF director, ‘next president of France’ and now infamous Dominique Strauss-Kahh
(…)To achieve this, the government would have to start collecting taxes and confronting the oligarchy, the vested interests and the deep state that are sapping its formidable potential,”
“My proposal is the following: Greece should get no more new financing from the EU or the IMF but it should get a generous maturity extension and significant nominal debt reduction from the official sector,” Strauss-Kahn wrote(…)
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Eduardo Galeano /Open veins of America Latina. LINK

Thomas Piketty / Interview. LINK

Strauss-kahh / Interview LINK