He emigrated to Australia and became a bank manager!!

Firstly - and this is the biggest point I want to make here Hoof - you can attack me for being left wing. You can attack me for being a socially liberal, PC-brigade Marxist. But don't ever, ever, put me in the same category as Milliband and Balls again. They are almost as far gone from my political ideology as you are Hoof, and I hold them in total contempt.

Anyhow. On your first point, I'm going to have to tell you some facts, and I know you won't like them, but you have to deal with them because they're true. The Olympics cost Greece 9 billion euros. Their rail project cost around 1.5 billion, but let's be generous and factor in maintenance and ticket receipt losses, and say it's cost them about 5 billion. That still accounts for about 4% of Greek debt, which has nearly doubled as a percentage of GDP since 2007. It would be better to look at the excessive military spending Greece took part in before 2007 for an example of public debt accumulation, but most of that came from a corrupted government, and pressure from European nations like Germany and the UK who forced Greece in to buying frivolous submarines, arms etc.

After the financial crash, European banks lent Greece money so its own banks could continue to operate, but with very high interest rates. To repay these loans, Greece borrowed short term loans from the Troika, and saw one of the biggest economic depressions ever experienced by a developed nation with massive cuts to pensions, public infrastructure, as well as record high unemployment levels. Thus, while of course public overspending played a role in Greek debt, for you to focus on that instead of, say, the monetary union, or the debt pressure placed on the banks, or the bankers themselves, is not only to miss the elephant in the room, it's to be unaware of a herd of elephants in a room painted in sparkly colours farting directly in your face.

I have been to Greece, but unlike you I sadly wasn't able to gauge the productivity of the whole nation. However, an OECD report claims Greeks are some of the most hard working people in the world, working around 2000 hours a year, 700 more than the average German, and about 300 more than the average Brit. Not only does this dispell the myth that they're all lazy and feckless, it also suggests that maybe they actually earn that early retirement in many cases.

As for your last point, what exactly has that got to do with anything? Oh yeah, you're copying the tricks of the trade from your mentor Paul Dacre and his Nazi-supporting rag, going for tenuous personal slander rather than genuine intellectual debate. And you're telling me to behave.

Greece is essentially an example of a failure of capitalism, some people don't like to admit that, so they blame anything else, especially the people most affected and with the least amount of influence over the system.

But ultimately capitalism as a system has failed Greece.

Why would anyone - banks included - borrow at rates higher than commercially available elsewhere - you'd be mad.

So let's be clear - commercial lending to Greek banks is always going to be on the high side because of the inherent credit risk. Since the bailout by the Commission, the European Bank and the IMF - Greece has borrowed at very low rates - the IMF is about 1% plus penalties for not meeting the payment schedule.

Greece has accumulated debt over the 60 years, is unable to generate any kind of surplus and doesn't have the basic structures to allow it collect taxes that are due. This is entirely self inflicted, and that is why there is no cash in the atms - and that's how things will remain until they stop blaming everyone else and start taking resposibility for themselves.

'Entirely self-inflicted' suggests that banks hold no responsibility to whom they lend to. As I said to danny earlier, if I went to a bank asking for a billion pound loan to pay for drugs and hookers, I would rightly be thrown out of the bank. Greece has been borrowing money to repay outstanding debts with very high interest rates, as well as to invest in German submarines and American weapons, among other things.

Why were Greece entered in to a currency union when their debt to GDP was so high in contrast to, say, Germany? I think it's becoming evident now that it was a convenience for German trade, which could thus flow more freely in to Greece, while also improving the competitiveness of the German market on the world stage. Germany sold nearly 2 billion euros worth of subs to Greece while the Greek government were implementing terrifying austerity, and they didn't even work! Sure, you can blame the corrupt government, but at some point you have to acknowledge the wanton negligence of the Germans and the EU for allowing Greece in to this position.

Why are the Greek people paying for a mess concocted by greedy Germans, idiotic banks and a corrupt dynastic government? They have democratically voted in a government which has a mandate to increase tax regulation and create jobs in order to improve an economy which has contracted by a third since 2007. If the Troika and Germany get their way and implement further public spending cuts, not only will Greece return to third world status, but they will be doing so with no democratic mandate and only exacerbating a problem which they were willing to help create when it was financially viable for them.

For you to claim this is a problem purely of Greece's own making is to totally ignore how global commerce works, the philosophy behind the European project, and even how financial lending works. Banks have to take responsibility, but as ever they aren't, because they are moronic greedy cowards.