Mike, I won't disagree with some of your points, (no surprise, the Euro is a mess), but I'm not sure it goes far enough to explain "why" they're in this mess.

The debt in Greece (about 300 billion euros) is roughly 15% greater than the entire GDP. The point of the article I posted is simple:

- when productivity in the private sector decreases while growth of govt spending increases...
- when you have cheap lending...
- when you have administrative waste (their defense budget has increased, and an estimated 80% goes to administrative/staff payments)...
- when you setup retirement plans for govt workers in their late 40's/early 50's (which alone has cost hundreds of millions), and some of the other govt benefits that make Obama look prudent by comparison....

...then things like a deficit crisis and downgraded credit rating become a reality.

So I don't see anything that weakens the arguments in the article I posted.

And I see Tracy just commented, and I agree with her: your view that the article can't possibly be spot-on, simply because it critiques the welfare state that I generally oppose, is another example of a circular argument (or as I sometimes call them, "circle-jerk" arguments)