[pepsionice]

I think there are four things which the news media and public have not come to grasp about this mess.

1. The amount of debt and economic issues are probably more serious on the average citizen than everyone imagined. If you are a diabetic....you have to use your own savings and pay cash to get insulin. Name any disease, it’s serum or pills, and if it’s made outside of Greece (90-percent chance), then you will burn up your savings to survive. Since 2009, Greeks have been waiting on the turn-around. It hasn’t happened. It might be two decades before some economic change occurs.

2. The truth is, Greece never was ready for the Euro. It may never be ready for it.

3. Once they end their relationship to the Euro and go back to the Drachma....Greeks will find the economy just about the same and most Greeks will be surviving off the dollar or Euro as their real hard currency....rather than the fake Drachma which everyone will be trading with.

4. If you think this January election is the end of the political chaos....I’d take a deep breathe and prepare for another election before the end of the year. This January election doesn’t really fix anything....it just resets the clock and makes people think there’s still a better chance ahead, where there isn’t.

[Cronos]

I think Greece has had economic troubles since it got independence in 1821 from the Ottoman Turks

[The Duke]

Who does Greece think they are ... Argentina?

[Former Proud Canadian]

You make four excellent points.

It is doubtful that Greece will make economic strides until they go through some structural and cultural changes. There seems to be no work ethic in Greece and people seem to expect something for nothing. When your country has few natural resources and you don't have a comparative advantage for any manufactured product you don't have many choices left. Building an export economy on feta cheese, olive oil, and yogurt won't get you very far.

[Kozak]

Going back to the drachma will improve the economy because they will Immediatly be more competitive. Greece will once again be a reasonable vacation destination. Greek exports will be cheaper. Greece can set its own fiscal and monetary policy and not be shackled to the Euro.

[SunkenCiv]

Great post.

[Olog-hai]

The euro’s only purpose was to remove countries’ sovereignty and establish a pan-European hegemony for the member states (one in particular) that the euro’s structure has been most amenable to.

Take note of what was said about the euro and those that controlled it back when the 2008 financial (beneficial) crisis hit:

The European Commission’s top economists warned the politicians in the 1990s that the euro might not survive a crisis, at least in its current form. There is no EU treasury or debt union to back it up. The one-size-fits-all regime of interest rates caters badly to the different needs of Club Med and the German bloc.

The euro fathers did not dispute this. But they saw EMU as an instrument to force the pace of political union. They welcomed the idea of a “beneficial crisis”. As ex-Commission chief Romano Prodi remarked, it would allow Brussels to break taboos and accelerate the move to a full-fledged EU economic government. …

That is pretty much realized about 95 percent (my guess), and now Greece can be discarded if need be. What a way to do business, yes? never mind foreign relations.