Problem with Greece
The answer lies in the following:
1) Who holds the debt. For Japan, most of its debt are held by its citizens, and thus it is very much in control although its debt/GDP ratio is very high as well. A big portion of Greece's debt is held by other countries such as France and Germany and when these countries press Greece for the money, Greece will be in trouble.
2) Ability to inflat its currency. Japan can choose to inflat its currency to reduce the cost of debt.
3) Pension scheme and percentage of civil servants. Greece has very generous pension benefits for its civil servants, and have relatively high percentage of civil servants of its work force.
Problem with Japan
Japan has a different problem. It has to do with the following factors:
1) Demographics. Rapidly aging population, resulting in less consumer spending and thus leading to deflation.
2) Savings habit. The money printed by the government goes right into the people's savings accounts, again leading to less consumer spending, in turn leading to deflation.
Who bears the burden
We have seen that the burden is passed from:
Institutions -> Consumers -> Government who now bears most of the debts
These burden can be borne (and resolve) by the following:
1) Future Generations (eg. 2-3 generations paying off the properties in Japan)
2) Trading Partners (eg. pressure on china to revalue yuan)
3) Debtors (inflat to make debt cheaper)
4) Government (simulating growth. revenue/tax will increase and thus fiscal deficit will decrease)
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