Superexcited Some excellent questions.
Greece cannot be 'forced out' of Europe. They can only leacpve voluntarily. No legislation exists on the EU books that allows for the expulsion of a country, and any such new legislation would require a unanimous vote. So unless Greece leave voluntarily, and I don't see them doing that, they will not be leaving the EU.
In regard to Greek's debt, they cannot be allowed to default. It is also impossible for them to repay, so it must be cancelled. They cannot default, because by doing so they trigger many trillions of dollars in credit default swaps, bets that businesses, investors and and banks have made with each other to hedge their investments against default. Like taking out gap insurance when you buy a car. So they cannot pay their debts, ever, as the EU has known for more than a decade, and they cannot legally label the debt as defaulted upon, so they have to 'restructure' again, and pass the problem on to a whole new bunch of politicians further down the line. The idea is to kick the can further down the road and decide what to do about it later.
The reason Greece needed more assistance than the others is because Greece's economy was never strong enough from inseption to form part of the union. Culturally they are more akin to their Eastern neighbours, than the Western neighbours in that business is handled more openly with bribes and services of officials are paid for in cash. Now, we call this 'corruption' in the UK, but it is how business is conducted in the majority of the world, and we are the ones who believe we are better than that and thus choose to villify that societal model. Nevertheless, we accepted them into the EU for political reasons, knowing full well that they were incapable of meeting the financial, structural or economic criteria, and we employed Goldman Sachs to create the documents, much as we created the documents lying about Sadam's threat to Europe in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. We, as a nation, use propoganda against our people when we need to shape their opinion on any given subject.
As regards the actual Greek people themselves, the citizens, their country is theirs to run as they see fit. We cannot help them. We, as citizens cannot even influence their thinking, as, like us here in the UK, their thinking is dictated to them, and controlled by their media. They are fed a constant barrage of propoganda, just as we are.
What is most important to us, should be to recognise the actions that are at play here, the forces acting upon the country, and their interests and motivations. The only thing we can do is learn to see what is happening, so as to see how it is happening and at what rate, within our own countries. Learning from these sorts of catastrophes, which are completely predictable and created deliberately by man, is the best we you or I have of protecting our families' futures.
There are those in Greece who did read the news, did do the analysis, and did see this coming. Many billions were removed from the banking system in the weeks prior to the bank closures and the capital controls being rolled out. So many Greeks did not have their heads in the sand, and will not be queuing up for their €60 a day allowance, of their €120 a week pension.
If one feels so magnanimous or charitable that they genuinely wish to contribute to the country, they would most benefit from tourists arriving with wads of cash, not flying in on predetermined package holidays or booking hotels with major companies. They need the money. Thompson and Expedia do not. So now is the time to be brave, pack a suitcase, book a flight with your credit card, and arrive in Greece, step out of the airport, and say to the taxi driver, "I have no hotel, can you take me to somewhere clean, where the food is good." Not the sort of thing to do with a family, but a very exciting business trip, or weekend away with a spouce.