Greece is paying, as Italy and Ireland are doing. Not sure for how long and what will happen, though. Whenever, back in history, populations are pissed off the hard way for reasons they are not accountable for or not even understand, bad things happen. I don't know what's the feeling up in Ireland, but for what I see in Italy and Greece, there will be sooner or later a breaking point.
Sorry but the people are the reason Greece/Italy are in the mess they are in. Tax evasion and corruption is rampant at all levels especially amongst the rich. Many in Europe believe that the people are simply getting what they deserved.
Tax evasion was basically 100%. Sure, it's easy to say "I'm only cheating a little, blame the big cheaters" but everybody was in on it. The ones paying for it chose to be unaware of what was happening.
Yes, as far as I know this is correct. In fact, reports by the monitors said that there wasn't even a capability to actually collect taxes in the tax collecting agencies, apart from no willingness and no real idea of how/why.
The people to blame are the ones who got Greece into the Euro in the first place. If they had stayed on a sovereign currency they would, almost definitely, have a lower GDP than they did on the Euro, but:
* They wouldn't have as much of an external debt problem.
* Their ability to export and attract foreign investment would be much better.
