[Dottore]

Originally Posted by jyl

Big topic. Some points:
1. Eurozone powers (Germany, France, ECB) want to avoid letting the first domino fall. They are trying to protect euro and their own banking system. What is good for Greece is not their primary concern. Greeks are essentially being sacrificed to protect the euro/larger Eurozone countries.
2. Most of the "bailout" money is being used to pay Greece's external debt - I.e. turning right back around and flowing back to rest of Eurozone, in particular banks. Basically, this is a bailout by European govts to European banking system.
3. Thus if Greece does give up and leave Eurozone, Eurozone will make it as painful as possible, as a warning to the next domino (Spain).
4. Large changes are needed in Greece's laws, public sector, private sector. So far the changes have been aimed at the lower-end - public sector employees, benefits, etc. Additional big changes need to be aimed at higher-end (businesses, wealthy) - ineffective tax collection/rampant tax evasion is possibly Greece's single biggest problem. If Greece actually collected taxes per its tax code, the country would not have much of a deficit.

The ordinary Greeks protesting in the street have a good point, actually. Not that they shouldn't feel plenty of pain too.

This. ^^^^^

Also of course there is really quite intense pressure on Germany (from within the EU) to keep the dream of a United Europe and currency union alive. If you took a referendum on the subject in Germany, most Germans would be in favour of cutting Greece loose. Merkel is walking a very fine line in trying to keep the focus on the big picture and not entirely losing her constituency. Very difficult issue in Germany...