The Greeks, government and people, got themselves into this mess and the EU made it worse by letting them fiddle the figures to join the euro. It is up to the Greek people and the EU to work out how to get themselves out of it.
For decades the Greek economy has been a byword for bad management. The government has met any unrest in their country by granting everyone huge pensions from as young as 50, and many other benefis they could not afford and didn't have the money for. Greece also has a grossly inflated bureaucracy. For example, most towns have their own civic orchestra. This means all the musicians like everybody else are civil servants in unsackable lifetime jobs with pensions at 50. The Greeks, like the Italians are notrious for avoiding paying taxes at all costs.
The EU then connived in distorting and ignoring all the contra indications in order to let Greece in on the Euro. Britain had the sense to stay out.
The EU and banks need to talk directly to the people not the Greek government and spell out in words of one syllable why the country is in the mess it is in. Make the people understand their personal responsibilty for what is happening to the country. Make the bail-out conditional on them paying their taxes and rawing pensions at the same age as other countries and at similar levels, which would be no state pension until you are 65 and occupational untilyou are 60.
I do not want to see people starving in the streets as they are now and systems must be set up to protect children in particular.
Some countries, like many of those in Africa, get into financial messes as the result of bribery and curruption at government level, because their economies are over dependent on one commodity and because of the lack of real democratic accountability. Greece has none of those excuses, it is a democratic country. The country, government and people, got themselves into miss mess, the Euro countries in the EU connived at it. Let them sort it out.
