Not a single Greek politician has been charged with corruption, yet there are socialist ministers from the Andreas Papandreou period of twenty years ago who have been caught stealing hundreds of millions of euros in German kickbacks for arms sales. All the EU money went into paying for votes by both right and left parties—by appointing voters to civil-service jobs for life, protected by a constitutional amendment—yet the electorate is ready once again to go the polls and vote the same old crooks back in.

I left Greece back in 1994 because politicians and civil servants demanded bribes from me to conduct my business. I refused to pay fakelaki, hence I couldn’t do business in Greece. So I cut my losses, got on my boat, and hit Europe’s beaches. When dumb hacks ask why most successful Greeks are outside Greece, the answer is because staying in Greece means paying protection money just like the poor wops in the Lower East Side paid the Godfather.

Greece has secured a second bailout from the eurocrooks. If Greece defaults there will be super-inflation and the nation could become the first failed eurozone state. The Greeks will remain poor and the country’s infrastructure and human resources will be unable to turn the situation around. It simply postpones the inevitable.

After the 2004 Olympics, while the various stadiums built for the games began going to seed, I tried to buy the judo stadium to turn it into a martial-arts dojo. I am still waiting for an answer. Two friends of mine had a similar experience. They were expected not only to pay for the rotting stadiums, but also to bribe the appropriate civil servants and ministers. Greece went rotten once it did away with the monarchy, which kept the politicians honest. The politicians cooked the books and sent the bill to the people. End of story.