The bottom line is €120 billion in loans and guarantees, along with some fairly brutal austerity measures.

Of course, the problem is not that the Greek government is profligate, it has amongst the most meager safety net in the EU, but rather that the populace aggressively evades taxes, and the tax collection authority is inefficient and corrupt.

Estimates have the Greek government, “losing as much as $30 billion a year to tax evasion.”

The solution here is very simple. While the German people may object to lending money to the Greeks, which is one of the reasons that Angela Merkel dithered, I don’t think that the German people would object to lending a few hundred to a few thousand of their nastiest most aggressive tax collectors to Greece.

As it stands not, Greek austerity is being carried on the back of the lower and middle classes, while the wealthy will continue to avoid paying their share. Only a few thousand of the 11 million Greeks claim an income above €100,000.00, and this is clearly not true.