When is a default not a default?
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IMF officials are clear that it would be considered the equivalent of a default. They just would not call it that.
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So it's perfectly all right then.
Can gets kicked down the road a little further.
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Greece will also be unable to pay back the European Central Bank, which it owes €3.5 billion on July 20.
A missed payment to the IMF, of course, isn't good. But given that the bank is an independent consortium of world finance, you could see it either as Greece missing a payment owed to most of the developed world, or as Greece missing a payment to nobody in particular.
If Greece were to miss a payment owed to the ECB, Greece is more directly and clearly missing payments owed to other members of the euro. This will be more politically toxic for the leaders of other euro members.
And again, Greece is considered "in arrears" to the IMF with a missed payment, and as the FT's Peter Spiegel notes, missing a payment to the ECB also will not be considered a default by S&P.
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Linky
Even more semantics.
As I see it there's really only two ways out:
Either cancel most of the debts, but that would give
carte blanche to any other struggling Euro member to just let spending rip in the sure knowledge that the ECB would bail them out.
Or Get printing those Drachma's.
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History is much like an endless waltz: The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever.
However history will change with my coronation - Mariemaia Khushrenada
