I read some stuff (in the Olympic airways in flight magazine of all places) about an African (Zambian) lady who advocates that all western aid to Africa except education should be withdrawn because it stops Africa from sorting out its own problems. Perhaps that also applies to Greece, but I don't relish being around in Greece in the while they sort the problems out the hard way.

...to have money in Greece when most others don't. At the very least you'll be getting huge discounts off starved store owners and you may even get to see the first ever vegetarian Greek easter with Greeks grazing grass, up on the Cretan mountains, like sheep

Betrüger in der Euro-familie.(Swindlers in the European Family)

Greece should be expelled from the Euro and default by their own. Hell, Greece is not even Europe to be fair.

Europe should be a land of hard working and honest people, something that Greece with it´s crooked books dont understand. That´s to say: Greece is closer to Africa than Europe.
The worst of all is that Greece ask the help of it´s "European peers", the same peers that Greece so shamefully deceive. Greece would probably feel a lot more confortable in the mess that is Africa where they wouldnt be supposed to work.
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As for your drift, it´s time for Germany to become a regular country, we do not have and nor we will continue to sustain unfit countries.

Greece has a GDP of 267bn Euro. Debt is on the order of 300bn Euro.
Imports in 2009 were down to about 60bn Euro, from 90 bn Euro in 2008. Exports fell from a record 30 bn to 20 bn Euro in the same time frame. Debt service alone amounts to about 20 bn Euro. Healthcare, military and education expenditure amount to about 20% of GDP, over 50 billion Euro. The other 50 billion Euros would include pensions and salaries for civil servants.

You may argue that military expenditure could be cut in half, which amounts to savings of 2% GDP or 5 bn Euro. It is generally unwise to cut healthcare or education. Of the remainder, even without having detailed information, you cannot reasonably expect to cut more than a third or about 15bn Euro. Any country needs civil servants and needs to pay them. Pensions are an income that people relied on and cannot be arbitrarily cut, because there are no provisions to replace them. Let's say the government could cut spending by 20 billion Euro.

Any cuts in government expenditure will have an impact on the economy as a whole and thus on the base of taxpayers. Increases in taxes - as proposed - will exacerbate this impact. It would be foolish to expect tax increases to increase government income by the same factor that taxes were raised.

You must keep in mind, that those are not ordinary tax levies. None of the money raised will find its way back into the Greek economy (at least not for the next two decades or so, and even then it will come in the form of a trickle, not as the deluge it was when it left). If you thought that paying more taxes to finance pensions was bad for the economy, then you should realize that paying more taxes to pay interest rates to foreign banks is a whole lot worse, because this money is *really* gone for good.

Let us assume that despite the weaker economy and despite the fully justified outrage by pensioners, Greece will manage to increase its income by another 20 billion Euro.

This may be enough to even out the budget, but not to repay any of the debt. Worse. In terms of GDP, Greece's debt burden will increase. No matter how optimistic you are, taking 40bn Euro out of the Greek economy will reduce GDP by 20-30bn Euro or about 10%. Even though the debt didn't increase by a single cent, the debt burden would increase from 120% of GDP to more than 130% of GDP.

In a few words: Greece is history...

the debts that Greece will continue to rack up will be too great for its feeble economy to bear. Earlier analysis by The Economist suggested that Greek government debt would rise to 149% of GDP by 2014 even if its deficit reduction went well. It assumes that Greece could sustain a brutal reduction in its primary budget deficit (ie, excluding interest costs) of 12 percentage points. Even that relied on an interest rate of 5%, roughly what euro-zone partners have agreed they will levy on Greece, on all new borrowing and on maturing debt. If interest costs are much higher, the government will have to find extra savings elsewhere. The deep cuts will only prolong Greece’s recession. Wages will have to fall if the country is to regain the cost competitiveness needed for a recovery. Both influences will push down nominal GDP for a while and make crisis management all the more difficult.

The scale of the task and the bungling of the rescue make the bond market’s capitulation seem natural. Greece needs so much money that the only thing standing between the country and default is open-ended funding from the IMF and the rest of the euro area. The €45 billion fund announced on April 11th would be enough to cover Greece’s budget deficit and repay its maturing debts (including the €8.5 billion that falls due on May 19th) for the rest of 2010. But Greece may need as much again in 2011 and still more thereafter. In an average year, Greece has to refinance around €40 billion of its debt (this year, would you believe, is a mercifully light one for redemptions). Add to that the €70 billion or so of fresh borrowing that may be needed to cover Greece’s cumulative budget deficits until 2014 and the scale of a credible rescue fund becomes clear.

Yet Greece’s would-be rescuers may feel they have little choice but to press on with the bail-out. A default that would cut the value of Greek public debt by a half or more would cripple the country’s banks. (S&P has also downgraded four of them to junk status.) It would also spark a wider financial panic in Europe. Around €213 billion-worth of Greek government bonds are held abroad. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimates that foreign banks’ lending to Greece’s government, banks and private sector was €164 billion at the end of last year. How much of this is public debt is unclear. But if half of the foreign holdings of government bonds are held by banks, and if each country’s banks owns those bonds in proportion to their total holdings of Greek assets, then perhaps €76 billion is held by euro-zone banks.

Euro-zone countries might be tempted to let Greece default, force non-bank investors to take a hit, and use the funds earmarked to rescue Greece to fortify their banks instead. That would cost perhaps €53 billion if, as S&P fears, a restructuring of Greek debt resulted in losses of as much as 70%. That may look small next to a rescue fund. But if Greece defaulted it would still rely on its EU partners to fund its budget deficit, which will take time to shrink from the 13.6% of GDP it reached last year. It seems there are no longer any options for Greece that will not cost its partners a lot.

And that´s what we get when we deal with swindlers.

Yes. It´s true that the Euro gave a huge boost for Germans, Italian and so on... exports to Greece but this was a forseeable future nevertheless the Euro also brought positive features for Greece.
In order to become a Euro partner, Greece knew that substantial reforms needed to be in place but instead they´ve chosen to deceive all of us. (The politicians got their votes and the people continued to live on their slow paced life)

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As to Greece not being Europe, i was out of place and for that i apologize nonetheless we still need to see if, the once great greeks, will regain their lost pride, get their house in order and start to contribute with the European project.

So far instead of working, Greeks seem to protesting, i can say it for sure that had Germany been in such an unholy position we would double our efforts. It´s beyond me how come Greeks seem to take no pride in taking care of themselves.

Anyway, indidually there´re swindlers and there are not swindlers, and this go every country but the Greek government has obviously deceived it´s partners and the least we can expect from partners is honesty.

I acknowledge that every generalization or bias (Remember, this goes to all) falls short that´s to say, obviously most Greeks are honest.