Greek Debt: Lehman Brothers Redux?

Tim Iacono submits:

Yesterday's commentary appearing in Spiegel Online about the ongoing mess in Greece contains a disturbing analogy about debt - Lehman Brothers in 2008 and Greece in 2010:

The European Union is certainly being put to the test and it is not at all clear if or when this will all be resolved. Meanwhile, the euro is being pummeled - now down to $1.37 - and everything that moves opposite the trade-weighted U.S. dollar is sinking fast.

But, there is some good news here - the U.K. never adopted the common currency.

Had the British hopped on the euro bandwagon back in the 1990s, all hell would be breaking loose right about now as European Union officials would, presumably, be telling the Brits to get their financial house in order by slashing government payrolls and benefits much as they are now instructing the government of Greece.

From The Economist comes this data that makes the problems in Greece look rather tame in comparison to one much larger Anglo-Saxon country to the northwest.

Of course, Greece's trade deficit only compounds their troubles and lying to the EU about their finances probably didn't help the situation either, but, in many respects there are much bigger budget deficit problems around the world.

In absolute terms, there's no comparison. The Greek government is talking about making cuts of $10 billion or more - that's about two-days worth of borrowing to fund the U.S. budget deficit that was just announced earlier in the week.

Fortunately for the U.S. and the U.K., there's no one telling them what they can and can't do.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.