A few word on Greece’s situation.
Politically, things are bad for Greece. The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, collectively referred as the Troika, are putting enormous pressure on Greece to shape it’s policy according to their plans. Greece’s new far-left government flat out refused. This started a blaming game. Some put the blame on Greece’s excessively generous social benefits. Others, on Troika’s excessively stringent requests. The relative lack of experience of Greece’s new government is also a factor not to be underestimated.
Yet, nobody seems to have taken an objective look at the situation.
Taking a look back, (based on The Economist’s global debt clock) Greece’s public debt rose to a staggering 451 billion USD in 2011 but has since recovered to pre-crisis levels at around 250 billion. The problem, as it seems is that pre-crisis, in 2006, Greek debt represented about 100% of it’s GDP; in 2015, that is about 150% of Greek GDP. In the last ten years, Greek economy shrunk by 50%.
All systemic reforms demanded by the Troika are moot provided they don’t get enforced. That has been Greece’s main problem. So far, the country has suffered from massive tax evasion. Syriza’s government claims to work on that. Yet, it seems, they don’t get any recognition for it. Greece has a pretty bad history when it comes to tax collection.
EDIT: Jan 2022 added a chart of Greek GDP to back up the seemingly crazy claim of 50M% drop in GDP