One needs to be in Greece or to have been there, I just spent twenty years there. Now, there will be those who will say that Greeks are lazy. Well, some are, most are not. Most Greeks work long hours for a meager salary benevolently handed them from the few wealthy barons who, along with a bloated and corrupt government, run the country. Well, they ran it into the ground. Most Greeks struggle to put a bowl of bean soup on their table will the send much of their income goes to put a gormet meal on the government's table.

The Greek has a long history of not paying back its loans, asking for handouts and suandering what they get, the money they got from the Marshall Plan being an excellent example. Then the government has the unmitigated audacity to say Europe and America owe it to them.

The weatlty and the government, regardless which party is in power, have a symbiotic relationship at the expense of a small middle class and alarge poor class.

And then there is the church. A billion dollar industry that does very little to help its impoverished flock. A bag of beans, a pack of macaroni and its conscience is soothed believing they did something magnanimous and altruistic.

I pity the common Greek, but the wealthy, the government and the church can go south of heaven for all I care about them.

I married into a Greek family and being from Missouri I felt the sting of the Greeks feeling superior, (before the current problem). All they wanted to talk about is how bad the USA is and that we should change our government to Socialism. Hours of Greek philosophy, (we call it arguing in Missouri), about how much better life was in Greece with free education and health care, and of course how they all enjoyed their 4 week vacation in the height of tourist season.

My latest conversations with the relatives are quiet different now. They still blame the USA for their problems and wonder why we don't help bail them out. Of course they still have the free education and health care and take 4 week vacations. It doesn't seem to me like they have learned their lesson yet.

I'm just a farm boy from the Midwest but I l got the lesson about learning from my mistakes, why don't they?

@Mark: I, too, married a Greek. She is very objective about Greece, Greeks and what caused all this. Yes, the Greek on the street will find some way to blame the U.S. for their plight. Any attempt at a rational airing of views is futile because Greeks are always right.

Today's Greece is eating a heaping plate of crow followed by a deep dish humble pie. Their perception of themselves and the glamorous but phony persona they created for all the world to view has come crumbling down. What embarasses them most is that the world now sees them for what they have been for so long.

And their education and medical care should be free, for as lousy as they are, paying for it would be criminal.

And I'm just a small town boy from Iowa, I learned long ago to never make the same mistake twice. But Mark, as you know, Greeks never make mistakes. All this is a conspiracy to destroy the Greeks.

@Mark: Ancient Greece was glorious, though often brutal and violent. But let's stay with those who made it glorious, if those founders of Greek civilization could walk through the streets of what is today Greece, they would run back to their graves and lie face down in shame. To me, the lose of that civilization is the true Greek tragedy being played out on stage today.