>>In the mid-nineties I was not too concerned, although Friedmans arguements were the ones ringing as probably true to my ears. But in the wake of eastern Germany switching to the € was politically unavoidable.
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>>> I'm realistic enough to say that I really would not know what the best one is, and that I'll leave it up to ones who do have better oversight.
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>>Here we differ a lot: I would prefer direct democracy similar to the swiss model, with the certain knowledge that some of those plebeic decisions will be classified as totally stupid by myself. "ones who do have better oversight" certainly are privy to more/better information, but that does not always translate into better decisions, as most investment funds fail to get better results than the market itself (even subtracted the cost of handling of ETF modeling)
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>I somehow don't see that even these guys who have all the information have the authority to make the best decision. Because they are always under the 1st commandment, "don't touch the banks". So banks force loans and investment upon the places where they can't return the money on time, with expected profits, or not at all. The banks have long ago developed this itch of money in their vaults looking for the next victim. Now the crisis of 2008 was purely a result of this kind of game, and what happened? Private transactions, between the banks, house owners, and resellers of funny papers (qv at "You never give me your money", Lennon et al) become something that's paid by everybody now become public debt, to be paid to banks from the tax money. Did I say "from tax money"? No, from loans that the govt's take from other banks (or whoever buys their bonds) and will repay from tax money.
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>Why? Because "if banks fail, some percentage of economy will also fail". Well, we bailed the banks out, and some percentage of economy still failed. In case of Greece, that percentage is about 20-30 at least (and don't know about other countries, just know how many places I've seen where shops are closing - in all the places I've been since 2008). I'd say that if banks were spayed, the percentage would be less, and we may even have growth.
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>Let them fall. They shouldn't be a sacred cow.

Would you feel comfortable having mr Putin expand his influence en perhaps a military presence in Greece? The money is really not too much of a concern, even though that is what you hear on in the media, its this willingness of greece to reform. And what if we kick them out? What are the geo-political consequences? Do you really want to see them having an alliance with Putin? If we still do, I do not think it is even cheaper everyone has to take their full losses at once, which certainly will have an immediate effect on the capability of other countries like Italy, Spain, Ireland and to some degree France to loan money.

Somehow I feel more confortable to be stuck with them, rather to lose them to the enemy.