Seems like a pretty interesting situation and nobody is talking about it.

They need money desperatly, but have to agree to make cuts so they won't keep having massive debt, however the people are mass revolting because they've already had to pass some austerity measures.

France apparently is fighting Germany to convince them to give greece the money without the austerity cuts.  While everyone is fearing that Greece failing might cause  lehman brothers type collapse that could also destory Ireland and Spain and basically hugely screw over the world economy again.

I'm really interested in what various people think about the whole thing.

They already bailed out Greece last year so i understand why Germany doesn't want to fund another one. Amazing how a small country's collapse lead to a domino effect taking out some of the PIGS (economics). USA needs to wake up with their dept issues or it can be next!!!

they mention on the news the other day that although greece has a third of our population they have over double the amount of people that work directly for the government. i thought that was interesting.

but on the topic of greece being poor and not a care to do anything about it...old news is old.

This.

Live within your means or deal with the consequences.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Ireland and Spain don't need Greece to get destroyed, they are doing a fine job of it themselves.

It is France and Germany that risk to get hit hard because their bankers lent a lot of money to the greek government. The bailout is not so much a bailout of greece as they do not have the political will to get out of debt and will thus default later (and worse) but rather it is a bailout of greece's creditors.

The Only thing thats in my head about that, is that i feel bad for the greek citizens, cuz they are the screwed ones in the end.

i watched newsnight the other day which had two greek ladies and a german guy,it was ace the 2 ladies gave him a right going over and the german said greece won't get many more chances as they haven't done what ireland and spain have done and that they will bail out german banks but not greece anymore

essentially it seems the greek people know they won't be let down because of the german and french eu dream,the too big to fail syndrome,its quite interesting really because either way it seems the shit will hit the fan,personally ihope the greek people hold out so brussells can sink into oblivion

i get the feeling the germans wish they had kept the mark because the trade with china,india,russia and maybe brasil would be so sweet for them on their own but who knows i am not an expert in anything,but thats the impression i got

the outcome is certainly going to be interesting and will most likely get ugly for the lefties in brussells,i can't see any conclusion other than the bailing out of more banks

i can't help laughing at gordon browns No More boom and bust speech,i want that gif,did gordon really sell all our gold reserves off at the lowest possible price,he wants to run the IMF and Blair wants to be european president,maybe i've got it wrong but god help us all

If more countries managed their finances well, and focused on creating regulations that protect the financial system rather than trying to promote the industry du jour, we could allow Greece to fail without any fear of problems cascading through the system ...