ANALYSIS

You know that there’s a problem when reporters are asking any Greek citizen that appears on television how the next generation intends to behave, will they have learned that you can’t get something for nothing.

You know that there’s a problem when reporters point out that Greek doctors who are known to earn in excess of a million euros, file tax returns claiming that they earn just 14, 000 a year.

Here is a corrupt country blocking the arteries of Europe.

And you know that there’s a problem when another nation’s PM, namely our own David Cameron, frustrated at how Greek politicians have failed to form a government or to indicate whether they intend to implement the next round of austerity cuts to this already austerity battered country, warns Athens  that there are plans for a Greek exit out of the Eurozone.

But how realistic is such a prospect, how would any one have confidence in the Euro again, especially with Italy, Spain and Portugal all  suffering under the weight of debt – and lets not forget Ireland either.

To remove Greece would be a spectacular own goal, that would make the fall of Lehman Brothers look inspired.

For to remove Greece would be hari-kari – Europe may never recover its position in the world, a world where Asia is still potentially the future economic powerhouse.

If the fall of Lehman’s signalled the beginning end of New York as the economic capital of the world, then the exit of Greece will only serve to confirm the end of Europe with its capitals of Paris, Berlin and London.

No one will be able escape the consequences, no one that is who is from the West.

So what to do with Greece – it will have to remain, as a second tier Balkan state which is what was when it was admitted into the Euro on the advice of Goldman Sachs.

And what will that mean- that that nation’s sovereignty will suffer in the same way that the Ottomans had when they were declared bankrupt and were then forced to accept British and French bankers who monitored every aspect of their economy, granting loans on conditions.

In this case, of course those bankers will be German and will hopefully do a better job of curbing corruption and tax avoidance than their Anglo-Saxon cousins who were at the time meant to be helping the Sultan and his office of the Sublime Porte, but who were in reality further undermining the economic foundations of a genuinely multi-ethnic, multi-religious state.