(Grrr. posted a long reply and lost it - I guess someone will be relieved).
I hate it when that happens. I feel your pain, brother.

although I pretty much can see your argument
Just to be clear, it's not my argument. I've merely explained how economies actually function, what money really is and I've laid out the choices that are available to us. It's all undeniable, if somewhat distasteful, fact. The only time I expressed an opinion was when I said that I thought we probably should bail out Greece in the short term but I qualified that by saying we cannot know whether it is the right choice or not - it's just the one that looks to me like it will have the best (or least worst) outcome.

Suffice to say, all this money lending and borrowing....on and on and on. What is the money being spent on?
Partly on public services, partly on acquiring the funds in the first place and, let's face it, partly on corruption and folly. But that doesn't change the way economies function.

Look, I'm no fan of the Euro. I said right at the beginning that you can't have fiscal union without political union. The Euro was an attempt by Germany and France to force a potlitcal union on the rest of Europe by creating a situation where it would be disasterous not to federalise. Where Germany and France got it wrong was that they didn't realise the constituents of Europe would rather have the disaster than the federalisation.

It also seems to have escaped Germany's attention that part of being one federalised super state is that the more productive parts will subsidise the less productive parts. We do it in our own nations already so why would that be any different if applied to a federalised Europe?