It is difficult to separate a country from the people living in that country.
I realise you're joking, but that will never happen. Nobody on Macedonia's side wants to unite with Greece. The majority of the people would rather see all Greeks wiped out from Earth before uniting in anything. Every deal that happens on any level between the two countries is all about getting political points for international use.

I'm currently making a series of posts about modern Russia, because I'm tired of explaining the same things.

US is a number one weapon producer. They need weapon market. They need to sell their retardedly expensive jets and rockets.
They can't sell weapon to China - too scared of "fuck patents" stance. It leaves, basically, only EU as market.
They are making scarecrow from us.
When USSR was dissolved (and there is BIG problems in it - it was done by old borders, which didn't represent modern situation of population and economical distribution), we got "democratic Chechnya" on our territory, and "went on murder rampage against them". US media didn't report that they were islamist radicals with embassy from taliban.
"Evil Russia destroyed young democracy". This perversion of facts resulted in "democratic chechens" getting green cards and shengens, many "russian mafia caught" are results of it, along with Boston bombing.

Then war of 08.08.08. "Democratic president Saakashvili" with US citizenship ordered an assault, and US media backed him as "victim of Russian aggression". His regime was overthrown by Georgians, he is searched for 3 felonies. But US senator asked Interpol to not touch him.

Then Ukraine. Surprise - the same fucktard Saakashvili. Let's be realists - we have "Fast reaction forces" in Belarus, which is 180km(3 hours for tanks) away from Kiev - ukrainian capital.If Putin really wanted to take Ukraine - it would've been done in a night.
Ukrainian problem - they are USSR Greece. USSR had so strong ukrainian ethnic group in Moscow that three leaders from 5 were ukrainians.
They prioritized their small motherland over the rest of USSR, made it the wealthiest USSR republic, then they got TONS of weapons, which USSR pulled off from eastern Germany, and leaved USSR.
How they lived after leaving USSR - they are in top 10(or even top 5) weapon exporter, still selling USSR weapon to Africa.
They had two discounts on gas, purchased fucktons of it for $350 and then resold it into Europe for $550
And they got default in 2003, when money ended(they couldn't purchase gas, smart investors realised technical default and started to pull off money. BUT it attracted vultures like Soros and Rotshilds).
Their biggest problem - they got ten times more people than Greece with lesser than Greece GDP during fat USSR era.
Putin doesn't want to feed them. Their territory - unmaintained for twenty years communications, dying plants.
Eastern Ukraine is in slightly better shape - they are self-sufficient with cycle of mining coal - producing energy - mining more coal - selling, and they tired of feeding that gigantic leech.
Unrest on the East was caused by Akhmetov, which, as self-respecting oligarch, have private army. Yanukovich was his roof(lobby/protector of interests) in government, with his overthrowing, Poroshenko would've captured his business. US thought that Putin would back him up and ordered to Turchinov (who is ukronazi, his father was shot by russians for fighting in Hitler's army) to destroy unrest ASAP. Civilians died as collateral damage and as result formed militia - "why the fuck we live in this shitty country which kills us". They crystallized around already existed formations. In Donetsk, it seems, Akhmetov's bandits were shot, in Luhansk they are still strong.

I just try to explain where it might come from, please don't think I feel this way.

I mean, one could say that it is the duty of the people to vote for responsible parties, even occasional to stand up for election themselves. Of course if politicians break the law it's not the fault of the people, but if there is no appropriate law or if the law investigation fails every time or if the policies of the elected parties are just wrong, then it is the result of a long time of voting for the wrong persons. If anyone is completely innocent then all Greeks below 25 but with increasing age there is quite some influence on what Greece is today.

Actually this probably could happen to everyone in every country. Who can remain strong if everyone around cheats - only a few probably. And also it's very interesting to see that Syriza and Anel does not make things much different from their predecessors.

I actually think that his point mattered: referring to nations as homogeneous entities instead of granular ones is a major confounding factor of the issue, one that has to be dealt with aggressively before even start speaking about economics.
I think that a German gynecologist share more common ground, necessity, ideals with a Greek gynecologist than, say, a German baker, or Martin Schulz.

This is the core of the question, actually. An easier way to solve this problem would have been to raise German wages, allowing the German working class to buy the expensive Greek oil, or to visit the beautiful Greek beaches.
That would mean three things:
- that a good economy, as the German one, would be rewarded with a greater purchasing power;
- that it would be allowed a redistribution of capital;
- that Europe is a nation, because what people in a nation do is helping each other;

But the German politics can't do this, because they have to answer to both the working class needs (salary) and the major financial groups needs (gain).

Thats the nature of politics. But I believe its only a matter of time until everyone reaches a consensus.

The root is easy: corruption in a bankrupt state. The solution is again simple: to change corrupt habits. Now here comes the problem: nobody wants change (and I'm not talking only about Greece).

Change cannot come without pain.

It would not be an easier way. Here we are more afraid of Chinese competition, so we won't raise wages too much in any case. Making German competitiveness worse on the world market may help Greece but only for a short term.

The only easier way would have meant a higher inflation target in all of Europe. From 2012 - 2015 inflation was well below 2%. Would we have seen like 4% per year the situation would be much better now and employment would be higher and debt lower at the costs of those who own - and they would not be happy about it.

Also there is more to the competitiveness of Greece. Still the expenses for military and pensions for example are really high. Selling olive oil may not be enough. You still need to fight corruption and create an efficient government and do much more.
Then the solution could be: The EU should just demand a single thing in exchange for the money: change corrupt habits.

That way you could force the right thing upon those who are unable to cure themselves from it. Actually my impression is that EU is trying this already but not with much success.

Yes, but you see, they would need to change their corrupt habits too. The indebted Greece would have never existed without a lender.

Syriza wants Greece to stay in the Euro too. They just want to stop austerity and give more money to the people. And that's exactly what Podemos wants too.

I know, I know... We have some working economy here and the reformations start to show positive effects. The problem is just that people are still suffering. Unemployment is still high and everyone's feeling it directly. There's no "Hartz IV" in Spain, so your family has to care for you if you don't have work for a too long time. So everyone's suffering from the high unemployment.

The red line is PSOE. They're more or less what the SPD is in Germany, just that they don't panic as soon as someone talks about a coalition with Die Linke. Just imagine a head-to-head race between SPD and Linke for the second place (CDU comfortably at the top), with the little difference that the SPD wouldn't mind to form a coalition with Die Linke to elect Sahra Wagenknecht as Chancellor O.O

I've met a woman from Venezuela recently. She left her country when Chavez started to do funny things. Back then, she said, everyone told her not to worry, because Venezuela isn't Cuba. We all know how this turned out. Now, everyone tells her that Spain isn't Venezuela. If Podemos wins the election, she'll leave Spain too.

Don't judge this from your view. You have to see "success" with the eyes of someone who lost his home (this is how "losing your home" looks in Spain - just search for "desahucios" if you don't believe me that this is normal here) because he couldn't pay the bank anymore, has absolutely no income and only lives because his family gives him a bed and food (which they can't really afford). So... Syriza's "We won't do what you say anymore." already IS a small success. Allow them to spend money for the stuff they promised in their election campaign and Spain will vote Podemos. People talk about Greece and Syriza a lot here.

Well...

The last "big thing" was when the Scots started their referendum to break apart from the UK. Catalonia wanted to do a referendum too, Madrid told them that this would be illegal and then the referendum turned into an opinion poll (where a huge majority stated that they want to be an independent state I think it was 80% or something like that).

We need to assume that the root of the problem is the corruption of the Greeks (it is not) and that solving the corruption could solve the Greek economy problem (it could not).

What if the corruptors were the top-manager of industries like Siemens, or Thyssen-Krupp?

Those money went in the German economy. Should Germans pay for this, too?

Corruption is a problem, it should be solved, but is not the problem.

Nice to see how closely "having a clue on what's going on" nowadays relates to "being super opinionated on everything". Not even touched by the idea that it's maybe because I'm too familiar with both main narratives (and their rationalisations, and the way they dismiss each others points) that I am unconvinced by one being exclusively Right and the other Wrong. Not even touched by the idea that it's maybe because I'm familiar with the rhetorics of both sides that I'm aware of how manipulative and obfuscating they are. The more categoric, the more knowledgeable. In many domains, though, the more you know the less clear-cut your stances get.

But that's a constant, in politics. The more you drum your chest while screaming slogans and super-convinced stances, the more people think you totally know what you talk about. Ironically, that is also a huge part of Greece's problems (the strong polarization by half-clueless manipulative politicians who seem so convincingly convinced that the other side will bring the death of everybody). If the whole affair had been dealt with, both locally and from abroad, from a less ideologically-driven and more encompassing perspective, maybe negociations and compromises would have been easier, and in any case less national hatreds and moral panics would have poisonned the issues...

But go get elected on that sort of platform.

Cut out the top manager crap... I once knew a greek dude who imported used luxury cars from all over Europe to sell them in Greece. He told me that this would be way too expensive if he would go the oficial way, but that he knows who to pay to get things done faster and cheaper. He surely wasn't a top manager (nor were the people he bribed). He was just a used car dealer.

If German politicians were helping them for decades? Yes! Sure, the average German wouldn't be responsible, but... Who else should pay for it? Italy?

I don't cut out anything because you say me to. First, because I don't take orders from you. Second, because I am reporting facts. Check them, it might help.

So? I know a Spanish drug dealer. And a Spanish surgeon. What does that even mean? This is the kind of useless bullshit that distracts from the real issues.

Do you really want me to answer a third conditional?
In a word? Mercantilism.

In many more words, you can find a lot of educated guesses in this thread.