Greece bankrupt; calls in the IMF

[longfingernails]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8639440.stm

Remember, their deficit is more or less the same size as ours.

Only difference - they are in the Euro, and can't set their own interest rates. We have the freedom to change them.

Thank God we aren't in the single currency.

Maria and Elenio - dont take BILD newspaper seriously! Nobody in Germany does - although it does reflect broadly what people are thinking, ie they are unhappy about bailing out Greece. But I havent heard any anti-Greek comments in real life, I have to say.

The stakes rose today, frankly I am a bit at the idea of having to pay for Spain and Portugal too. I dont think anybody's going to get that past German taxpayers, tbh.

As a German commentator said today on TV.

They may help Greece once in the next few months to stave off default for a while but they will never bail out all the others.

Au revoir, adios, auf wiedersehn to the Euro then?

I suspect that in the ultimate crisis the German people would demand the reinstatement of the Deutschemark. I know that politically, at the time of monetary union the German people were persuaded to adopt the Euro on that basis that it 'is the Deutschemark'.

In other words, it would not be so much the PIGS leaving the Euro but the Germans abandoning the project. I have always felt that the Euro a political and not an economic construct would be inherently vulnerable in a crisis where each country will inevitably act in self interest and follow the path that suits its economy and not the union.

"People demanding" has very little to do with what will actually happen, though.

Because their opinion was hardly ever asked at any point of the EU project.

And because this is a complex macroeconomic situation with far-reaching consequences that "the people" are not willing and/or able to understand.

Well there is always the option of kicking out countries who arent willing to abide by teh rules, and having a France-Benelux-Germany-Italy eurozone.
Ireland is OK now, isnt it?

Not sure Italy plays by too many rules.

I am going only going on whats been reported recently about the states of the various economies, not prejudice louise.