I'm not saying it was painless. Citizens were affected and probably still are affected, my envy was about the decisiveness of their political parties, that at t

I'm not saying it was painless. Citizens were affected and probably still are affected, my envy was about the decisiveness of their political parties, that at those grave times didn't resort to popularism to rise to power, but instead almost all the parties agreed and now are free from IMF et al. About the savings of their citizens, you're right, I would do that as well, and wonder why they didn't do it, like just "print" an IOU or something for the citizens that got the haircut up to some limit. On the other hand Greece went through everything but the traditional haircut of the savings. Continuously new increased and "temporary/emergency" taxes, enforced capital controls and we are way longer in crisis. All this time and sacrifices and still only two of the minor socialist parties (one of which wasn't even in the parliament) joined forces (probably for survival reasons and not for the "good" of the country). I personally have some hope which was reduced from the last elections' results. But the problem is the people that keep choosing to blame everyone else and take the seemingly easy way out. What do you do then? Pray for a Messiah starts to look like the more realistic option. /f