What Greek Politicians should be telling their people is that with or without the Euro, Major cuts are going to have to be made. They spend more then what they make.

To get help from their neighbors, they have to make cuts to bring things in balance. Ask yourself if you would loan me money if I was making no effort to balance my budget. Probably not. You'll never see your money again.

If they leave the Euro, these cuts will still have to be made. If Not, The Government checks would cease to have value as there is no money to cover them. You didn't arrange to repay your debts to your neighbors & bring things in balance so they will not loan you anymore.

On the other hand they can print money to cover the checks, but this just devalues the money you have in hand until it also becomes worthless.

Their problems are multiple.

Example: For every dollar they take in for train service, it costs them $7 to operate it. Anyone with a brain knows this can't continue without taking from someone else. Also a problem, because most of their system is all in the same boat. The answer would be a reduction in personnel & wages & ticket fee increases. This upsets the people & they protest. My answer. Just shut down the trains, because the system is broke. Then start over if the people decide to take their medicine.

Some post that they need to raise the Corporate tax. Two problems here. 1. Most of the industry in Greece is State owned such as the trains system or partially owned by the state. Kind of like adding a $10 tax on yourself to give yourself a $10 raise. Dumb. 2. Those Corporations that do exist just increase prices to pay the tax. Fact, Corporations are government tax collectors. They pay no tax. They collect it from you & give it to the Government. If the prices are such that they can't pass these costs on they 1- sell to another Corporation who moves it outside the Country, 2- they move the business outside the country. Or close the doors. Now you have no jobs & no tax revenue. Or the Government buys it & you end up with another train type operation. All losing options.

Another problem is most Greeks don't pay their share of taxes.(Rich or Poor). Someone who pays their required taxes is considered the exception & your friends & neighbors make fun of you. The reason this happens is because Greece has a poor tax collecting system with very little paper trail to keep people honest. Tax cheating is the Greek norm.

Example: One Greek sells a house to another for $200 thousand & reports selling it for a $100 thousand. He just avoided taxes on half the sale value. The Buyer goes along because property taxes are based on $100 thousand instead of $200 thousand. In the U.S., property taxes are based on appraised value regardless of what you pay for the property.

Another problem. Their tax collectors(Most) are also dishonest. Say you owe $200K. You give the tax collector $50K toward the taxes plus $10K in bribes & it's reported that your taxes were paid in full. Again it's lost in the Bureaucracy because of poor paper trail. Also the $50K may not even get paid.

Back to the Money printing. This happened in the Soviet Union when it dissolved. When they started replacing the old currency with the new, they found that there was a 3 to 1 ratio to GDP.

In simpler terms, In U.S. value it would be $3 for every $1 worth of product available. Just because you have money doesn't mean you can buy something. The product has to exist. Currency has to stay in balance with GDP or you ration the product. In the Soviet Union, it wasn't just having money to buy things. It was rationing because of product shortage.

The U.S. is headed in the same direction. People say tax the Rich. What most people don't understand is that if you taxed the Rich 100% in the U.S. it would only cut the annual deficit by about 50%. This leaves you about 800 billion short. & the Next year will be worse. It takes money to make money & grow the GDP. It's kind of like eating most of your seed corn. Next years crop will be much smaller.

It's not that we need to tax more. We need to tax different. Corporations that build new plants & create several thousand new jobs without shutting down another should be taxed at a lower rate. Present tax law allows them to avoid some taxes without having to spend to do it. Same goes for the Rich. Tax them in a way that promotes growth instead of making money just by shuffling it around.

It's a Win, Win, Win, Win...

The Corporation has expanded increasing future profits. Government receives more taxes without raising tax rates.

The Government is collecting payroll taxes from those who have a job.

The Government saves 50 to 80 thousand a year taking care of a family on welfare producing nothing. They now have a job.

The person working is now contributing to society instead of living off someone else s labor.

On the other hand, if you think welfare is good, lets put more people on it & print more money. We'll be like the Soviet Union. You'll have money in your pocket, but the products will be rationed. There won't be enough to go around for everyone.

Germany should Give them the Money. WHY.

Germany has worked to be a good steward. They sacrifice to keep there spending in balance. Does that mean they should be punished for doing the right thing. Most of Germany's debts is from giving to other Governments who have failed at their job. And what happens when Germany no longer has anything left to give. Who will help them. Eventually the money train will end.

There's a difference between helping someone who has hit a rough patch & helping those who do nothing to help themselves. The Greeks got themselves into this mess. They need to sacrifice to fix it. You can blame the enablers(Banks & financial institutions) for offering easy money, but in the End the Greek Politicians are ultimately Responsible. It was their decision to take the money knowing it had consequences.

I guess from the Greek leftists comments that they feel that the Germans, and others, who are lending them money so they can pay their bills should just continue to support their foolish choices and welfare statism without requiring anything in return by way of semi-adult fiscal behavior. The Greeks can go on their merry way with stupid things like designating hair dressers as a risky profession and allow people to retire at 50 with full pensions and on and on. Ever since the Greeks joined in this madness called the Euro they have used that concepts low borrowing costs and preferential treatment to raid the treasuries of not only their own country but now the rest of the European Union countries treasuries to support a socialist states spendthrift ways. In the past 30 years Greece has gone from a relatively stable small nation economy that kept decent books and lived pretty much within its mean to a bankrupt state trying to weasel our of doing their part to earn an even larger credit line.

Yes, the interest rate the Greeks have to pay (something like 6-7%) for that borrowed money is a hard burden but it can be done if the Greek people give up the liberal/socialist idea that they can have everything while doing almost nothing to earn it. Should the other better managed and more fiscally conservative countries spend their citizens hard earned savings as well as their paid taxes to support a welfare state that they didn't create or entitlements from which they get no benefit? If you personally were on the verge of bankruptcy and everybody knew, it do you think you could get a bank loan at anything as low as 6%, or at any %? Do you think our federal laws would even allow a bank to loan you any money in that scenario? I'd bet not !!

Socialists are digging a mass grave for the stupid and lazy Greeks.

The only way the Socialist can do without austerity is to raise taxes! The rich and the smart people understood that principle so they have been leaving (huge cash withdrawn from Greek banks and "brain drain"), and it will cause real estate prices to collapse. The Socialist can only tax the not-so-smart middle class and the stupid Greek who had been living just above the poverty line! Greek may not have enough money to provide basic needs for its people within 2-3 years. Communist had dig their own grave (USSR and the old Eastern Europe), the Socialist will also dig a mass grave for Greek.

Yet again you people continue to misuse/misunderstand the term Socialist. A majory of Americans favor Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Retirement payments, unemployment insurance.........these are socialistic ideals and the U.S. has strong support for these.

If you want an easy 9but politically impossible) answer to all of this search about how North Dakota runs a state operated bank and therefore pays almost no interest on loans both to it's own government AND to public persons. It runs a huge profit even before including the interest not paid to private banking whores.

State owned Bank of North Dakota:

70 million in profits last year PLUS the state of ND not having to pay interest to private banks.

Imagine if the U.S. did this rather than be stripped by private banks who then use OUR profits to invest in risky adventures in attempts to grow their own profits larger. And when these risky investments fail who does the private bank turn to? Indeed, the public pays again.

Screw private banks.