The Greek patient - diagnosis and recovery?

One of the nice things about the world is its linguistic diversity: there are so many different, and interesting, ways to perceive and communication things about the world. On the other hand, this diversity is limiting to most of us because we speak only one or two, or at best a few, of those languages. Consequently, trying to inform ourselves about what is happening on our little planet is met with not only qualitative challenges (objectivity, reliability, willingness to distribute, etc.) there are pure quantitative ones as well. If you don't speak or read, say, German, you most likely aren't going to get much news from German sources.

One of the issues that interests quite a few people these day is the situation in Greece (and Cyprus) and in a recent back-and-forth with an American friend, it became quite clear to me that when dealing with limited sources of information, it is difficult to get a full picture of a particular issue. Don't get me wrong, I have no pretentions of resolving either the issue or the access to information, but I do feel obligated to add more to the mix, if you will. Maybe there is more to the whole affair than most of us are aware of, so I would like to offer my own humble contribution.

In the posts that follow, I will be relying heavily, but not exclusively, on a recent German publication by Dirk Müller entitled Showdown: Der Kampf um Europa und unser Geld [Showdown: the fight for Europe and our money]. Herr Müller is known in Germany mostly by his nickname, Mr. DAX (the DAX being the German counterpart to the Dow Jones Average); his a journalist, with his own background in banking and finance, who specializes in finance, banking, and economic topics. He appears regularly on talk shows, is often interviewed in relation to banking and finance issues, and, of course, he is a relatively popular author as well, as he does have the ability to break down complex topics into a simpler, more easy-to-understand presentation. I'm not vouching for his complete authority, but I have to admit that even if I'm not his biggest fan, he does make an interesting and rather persuasive case for rethinking the Greek problem in the Eurozone.

Whatever I have to say is, you should know, presented solely for your own reasoned consideration. You are, as always free to accept or reject anything I say on his behalf or my own, but I would ask that you do so in the spirit of enlightened discussion and debate, as outlined in the last five posts. Yes, there was a reason that I brought up those issues first. As an irregular contributor to the Daily Kos, I get involved too often in what are known there as "pie fights"; that is, stupid, senseless arguments about off-topics issues, such as my intelligence or the intelligence of my sources. Consequently, I'm going to tell you up front what the coming posts are about, namely:

1. There is more to the current Greek situation than meets the eye.
2. Not everyone involved is playing on the up-and-up.
3. Whatever problems/issues may exist in regard to the Greeks are a European ones.
4. The Greeks and Europeans should be left alone to resolve their own issues.

With that in mind, meet me next time for a bit of a history lesson.