> Greece is in a recession for more than 16 years now, with no visible exit, because (one of many reasons of course) it couldn't devalue its currency back in 2009.
Greece is not in a recession, it hasn't been in one for a while. It's in austerity mode which I do agree it's a too blunt of a tool to use for recovery but alas those were the terms for Greece to get a bailout after its debt mismanagement (including lying in their official government reports for many years).
> Now we might speculate that Greece couldn't have avoided this, even if it weren't for the Euro, but having lived this from the inside, I think that it wouldn't be that painful.
And why do you think that? It's a small country, with a small economy, accruing so much debt that wasn't used for development which in turn didn't generate taxes in return. Notwithstanding the cultural practice of tax evasion, it was going to implode either way.
It would be probably as painful, or more painful, to be shackled to the IMF's terms (which always have included austerity) while holding your own currency which would be quasi-worthless because no one wants to buy your bonds unless you paid massive interests. Debt repayment premiums would be a massive headache either way in the Greek budget (with or without the euro), devaluing your own currency would create a lot of pain for the people since Greece imports a lot of more advanced stuff from other EU members, and also would erode all savings from a relatively old population.
I don't agree with the austerity bullshit, just to be clear, but I don't think there was any solution that wouldn't be painful, maybe different pains but it was never going to be much better.
I say that as someone who lived through multiple Brazilian crisis, including four currency changes to tackle hyperinflation, lived under IMF-imposed terms.
I understand the pain but in both cases (Brazil, and Greece) the absolute mismanagement of the state's finances for decades required bowing down to the powers that be (IMF, ECB, etc.) to save the country from bankruptcy.