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.