WSJ: In the End, Greek Crisis Will Hit Taxpayers

Sovereign-debt crises always spark struggles between creditors and debtors over who should suffer losses.

Since the Greek crisis exploded nearly three years ago, those fights have played out in euro-zone summits and finance ministers' meetings and have been covered feverishly by the global media.

Because of the large number of parties with stakes in the outcome—Greece and 16 other members of the euro zone, the European institutions and the International Monetary Fund—they have been even more complicated than usual.

...But now, particularly after the proposed buyback of some of the remaining private-sector debt, a vast majority of Greece's debt will be held by the public sector—the euro-zone governments and their bailout fund—the European Financial Stability Facility—as well as the European Central Bank and the IMF.

They will thus have the onus to make sure it is manageable. Costs will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers in Northern Europe, in spite the past best efforts of their governments to avoid it. Getting to this point has been a tortuous journey, not to speak of a very painful one for the people of Greece.

And it isn't over yet.

Read the entire article here at the Wall Street Journal