Yes, the Greek nation is a house divided against itself, with its greatest claim to fame how to live well beyond your means for years and massively waste other folk's money.

If Greece returned to the drachma, it would be able to use quantitative easing to give the economy a bit of shot in the arm?

Via monetary policy; as well as become a source of cheap labor for european manufacturers just to get the populace gainfully employed and earning some essential export income for Greece.

They don't have to print drachmas to return to it, when all they need is to hit a few keys to register a drachma exchange rate for the purpose of digging themselves out of the financial current hole!

Nothing should leave those shores as raw or unprocessed product and it could become a premier low cost tourist destination to the same end!

They could and should ask for a moratorium on interest in order to reduce their debt burden given it's only the cost of servicing this debt, that continues to drown Greece in unrepayable debt?

I'm sure the creditors would rather have all the capital repaid over reasonable time; than say take ten cents in the dollar the result of forcing Greece to declare bankruptcy.

Greece could do worse than take a leaf out of the Irish book and the Celtic economic miracle!

An economic miracle that took another basket case economy and turned it into one of the most successful in Europe; always providing the Greeks also remember, what killed it at the height of its success; namely, foreign debt laden speculation!

Just don't go there!
Rhrosty.

I would like to propose two perspectives on Mal Fletcher's article. A racist one, and a trendy lefty one.

As a racist, I would point out that what Mal Fletcher wrote about Greeks and the Germans being intrinsically different in their values and attitudes, is self evidently true. It was not an accident of history that the Reformation began with the North. Nor that the widespread acceptance that scientific thought trumped religious dogma, was largely a Northern attitude. This was probably because, once civilisation in northern Europe had taken hold, (it was still was largely forest and far less fertile than the South,) northern Europeans evolved to be far more critical in their thinking than southerners, because their survival depended upon it.

And if multicultural Europe is under strain, with the Northern Europeans doing all the heavy lifting while the Southerners want La Dolce Vita at the Northerners expense, then emulating multicultural Europe is insanity for Australia. This premise seems to be valid, as some ethnicities in Australia act just like the Greeks in Europe, and they are endemic welfare dependents.

From a trendy lefty point of view, Mal Fletcher is a racist to claim that Greeks are different to Germans. Therefore, the reason why the Greeks are poor and the Germans are rich, must be because the Germans somehow oppress the Greeks. It must be the German's fault. As a socialist country, Greece should be able to borrow as much money from the Germans as they want, forever, and keep paying their people overly generous social welfare forever. After all, money simply falls from the sky in Germany, so what are the Germans complaining about?

Money does not fall from the sky in Greece, because of man made global warming caused by the Germans, the Americans, and the Israelis. All the Greeks need to do is to keep voting for Socialist governments. Then the Socialists can think up new ways to spend the money they borrow forever from Germany, on Greek voters to buy their loyalty.

Socialism in excelsia.

LEGO. A touch of witticism goes a long way :)

LOL... Slam Dunk, LEGO

Two observations.

Greece was part of the post war consortium that took a haircut and 'forgave' the vast bulk of West Germanys' wartime debt in 1953. What debt remaining was giving low interest with repayments being linked to Germanys balance of trade surplus.

Germans forget this today.

Secondly ,no shared currency has ever worked... the Euro was a disaster just waiting to happen

Yeah sure, the entire Greek nation is collectively responsible for repayment of the irresponsible loans provided by NW European bankers for the benefit of Greek oligarchs. So every Greek pensioner, child and worker now must spend years in economic misery because they 'deserve it'---what a load of drivel.
These structural adjustment policies have been inflicted on Third World countries for generations, everyone is punished except the kleptocracy which skimmed of the bankers' money.

When the real estate bubble bursts and members of the middle class discover, to their horror, that their McMansions are worth half their mortgages, they will be the first to protest against austerity policies.