Greek crisis has two faces. It is true that Greeks introduced crazy socialistic ideas like having written down in the constitution the law that civil servant c

Greek crisis has two faces. It is true that Greeks introduced crazy socialistic ideas like having written down in the constitution the law that civil servant cannot be made redundant. It ended up with huge number of employed officials doing nothing. It is also true that Greeks made cheating on taxes a pure art (and I am speaking this as a Polish, and people in Poland are not exactly rushing to pay taxes). Covering pools with a military masking net to avoid tax or things like hiding relatives death for many years to get their pension are kind of unusual practices. This pathologies are partly caused by absurd tax regulations, though, so I wouldn't attribute it to "Greek nature", as some people do. But it is also true that Greeks were tricked into joining Eurozone. They had rather weak economy without well developed modern industry. As long as they had drahma, Greek products were cheap, Greece was also cheap as a touristic destination. It has all changed, when they joined Eurozone, this hasn't improved their economy, but made their often low quality products expensive. Who was main beneficiary of this? Obviously Germany, before Euro Deutsch Mark was becoming a very strong currency, so German products were expensive (similarly to Swiss Franc). Introducing Euro changed that. Right now German economy is blooming, they are about to have zero debt budget next year and the rest of Eurozone is kind of in trouble. The other thing, Greeks were actively encouraged to take credits (I can't believe that banks and governments were so stupid that they couldn't analyze situation). Greeks spent those money on products bought abroad (with Germany as a big seller). Greeks bought a lot of military equipment in Germany, for instance. So, Greeks made others rich in that way. Now they are left with top quality war ships, but they cannot payback their debts.