Steve,

No wonder socialist governments are always deeply in debt. Keynes would be rolling in his grave if he knew that his economic theories had become synonymous with eternal deficits. Keynes strongly advocated for fiscal responsibility, and for running surpluses when growth was higher than average, so that stimulus could be provided when growth was low or negative.

Socialist governments in the UK and Europe after a decade of decent growth had left their governments highly in debt with the result that there was little room for stimulus and the only alternative to bankruptcy was austerity. Greece being the very worst borrowed far more than they reasonably could expect to repay in the good times and went bankrupt when things changed.

The bankruptcy of the Hellenic economy is a good opportunity for its citizens and its institutions to take a good look at themselves and identify the causes of the economic collapse and how to get back on track. It is a fact that certain classes of citizens and institutions contributed to the collapse by not paying taxes and by sabotaging the future of the country. Large sums of borrowed money was also spent on undermining its neighbours like the Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. Greece's contribution to Western civilisation is over rated and largely fictitious. Greece still does not recognise the existence of ethnic minorities. It is passing its huge inflow of refugees to its neighbours. Greece has violated the trust of the EU and is now paying the price for it.

The author ought to recognise that none of those immigrants want to stay in Greece. They want the UK and Germany where the best deal of free money for no work is.
Do not moralise against the other members of Europe when the problem is a succession of profligate Greek politicians who believe, like those migrants, give me the best money for no work.
Big pensions for no work. We should now look at ALL entitlements taken from taxes. Let's have a bit of fairness here in Australia too. The Greeks will have to do that as well but I bet the politicians will keep their entitlements.

A salutary lesson in how not to run a country!

There are Greeks all over the world making a reasonable quid and who should no longer abandon their fellow Greeks but help to support them while they draw down an almost impossible Greek created debt!

More should leave while they can and then send money home!

They could do worse than study the Celtic economic miracle and how it was created and what destroyed it?

Namely debt laden foreign speculators!

Cleary a cash strapped and basically bankrupt Greece just doesn't need an influx of them and with that, the loss of its remain economic sovereignty!

Once you've sold the farm and basically become tenants in your own country, it's almost impossible to buy it back!

As for past deeds, how is that more significant than what the Anzacs sacrificed as they too fought on half a world away and foreign soil and against tyranny in someone else's wars!

You have to stop bellyaching about the pain caused by shooting yourselves in your own economic foot!

Realise that the day of unearned entitlement are over and just get on with doing what must be done to recover?

I mean the Irish know what it is like to be under the foreign capitalist heel.

And the help that came in the form of exploitative workhouses and English Landlords.

And that history includes a time where they also were the worst basket case economy in Europe and did enough to turn that around.

And for a time became one of the most successful economies in the European economic community; only crueled by allowing debt laden foreign speculators in, with their greed is good slogans; and a stupid government that not only encouraged it, but stupidly tried to bail out the speculators and banks with finite taxpayer funds.

Learn what created that economic miracle; and avoid repeating what destroyed it!

Be prepared to spend a couple of decades doing the former and just don't think you can also do what the Irish did at the top of their truly miraculous success!
Rhrosty.

There is one thing about the whole Greek tragedy that I simply do not understand. The simplest thing to do in 2007, when the bubble burst, was for Greece to default on its debts and return to the Drachma. This would have caused a lot of hardship, but they most probably would have been over it by now. But for some reason the Greek people seem determined to stay in the Furozone, even after all the trauma it has caused and is still causing them. Even Marine Le Pen, who could well be elected President of France in 2017, has as her first two political planks to default on France's debts, and to ditch the Euro.

Could someone please explain why the Greeks want to keep the Euro?

The Euro is as good as an entirely unfettered free market for those who belong to this exclusive club.

And something a basically bankrupt Greece needs, if only to trade her way out of debt.

Belonging to the European free market was central to basket case Ireland's economic miracle!

Only crueled by debt laden foreign speculators, as also happened to a lesser extent in Spain!

Greece needs to emulate the Celtic economic miracle, but avoid what killed it off; and remaining in the E.C.C is central to that objective as is trading out of trouble!

Something that will likely take more than a couple of decades; or much longer, if Greece takes to short termism; and starts selling income earning assets?

The very last thing a competent manager envisages as any part of any debt drawdown solution!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty you seem to be conflating the EU and the Eurozone. But Denmark, Sweden and the UK decided to remain outside the Eurozone despite being in the EU.

Anybody checked out the ABC news website's stories on Greece lately? Every one of them presents the Greeks as the poor victims of European greed, bravely standing up, Thermopylae style, to those nasty German bankers. Maybe the reason Xerxes invaded Greece was because they owed him $300 billion drachma, and he wanted to foreclose?

Now Steve Pelecanos writes a similar article in the same style as the ABC. I'll bet that Steve is an ABC supporter. Rather incredibly, Steve points correctly points out one of the main problems. Greeks have a cultural aversion to paying taxes. But Steve does not criticise this stupid culture, no, he tries to justify it. You are not part of the solution, Steve, you are part of the problem.

Socialists are mad. They hate the productive sides of their country, even though they want to tax them out of existence to pay for the social programs which will keep them in power. Since that is obviously not going to work, their next bright idea is that somebody else's bankers should lend them money forever to bribe the electorate to keep them in power forever. And they should never have to pay the money back.

Using other people's money, the electorate can be bribed with very generous welfare payments and very early retirements on more than full pay. This welfare is beyond the nations capacity to finance itself, even if the Greeks paid their taxes, which they won't.

Sooner or later, reality bites. But instead of figuring out that their culture must change, the Greeks act like kids who are eating too many lollies, and who throw a tantrum when their parents take the lollies away. And naturally, our ABC soviet, and people like Steve, support the Greeks in their childish behaviour. Money should just fall from the skies in Socialist utopia, and if it doesn't, just hold your breath until you turn blue, and jump up and down, and it will happen.

LEGO, socialists would be mad if they hated the productive sides of their country. But very few (if any) do; that view of them is almost exclusively held by people who dismiss their ideas without even trying to understand them.

That Greece needs cultural change is beyond dispute. But what's happening now is that Greece is, in addition to that, being forced to accept conditions that will severely WEAKEN the Greek economy, reducing their ability to repay the bondholders next year.

It would be better for almost everyone if they were out of the Eurozone. Some of their creditors are a possible exception, but it wouldn't be much worse even for them.

The Greek problem is half solved. It will be allowed to wither away and become even more irrelevant except for the Euro-Disney ancient sites.

The young are leaving and hopefully, given our distance, we get the good ones.