To understand Greece's recent travails and how the country got there, it is useful to quote what Mikis Theodorakis, the famous Greek songwriter and composer, wrote about it recently on his homepage:
"Until 2009, there was no serious economic problem. The major wounds of our economy were the enormous expenses related to the purchase of war material and the corruption of a part of the political and economic-journalistic sector.
"For both of these wounds, foreigners are jointly responsible. Germans, for instance, as well as French, English and Americans, earned billions of euros from annual sales of war material, to the detriment of our national wealth.