A lot of commentators - and, of the politicians, at least our finance minister, Mr. Schäuble - are treating the Greek national finance crisis like a sort of Titanic-after-the-iceberg. They all "know" it's sinking, but at least want to have all the deckchairs in a line, looking proper. Worse: They constantly cluck & fuss about the silly or "blind" current Greek government...

While they are apparently blind to the "elephants in the room"!

I'm an economic layman, but even I remember that off and on, major blame for Greece's badly worsened & constantly worsening state has been put on these figurative pachyderms. That is hardly mentioned now.

Let's do the quiz: Is it the politicians - Tsipras / Merkel / Juncker? Not recently. Is it the greedy Greek state officials & their pensions? No. Could it be the banks? YES!

Not solely (before, during & after 2008) but also the Greek banks*.

Before 2008 they, like many others in Europe (instrumentally e.g. Deutsche Bank, as one of the major architects of the crash & thus the crisis) played the derivative speculation game on the world's stock exchanges. Credit default swaps & suchlike.

Just after the 2008 crash, the big banks had to be rescued by their corresponding state, which put up emergency capital to prevent them from defaulting: 'After the [Lehman] collapse [..] most countries - incl. Greece - made exhaustive guarantees for their banks. In addition many countries shored up their badly shaken financial institutions with new [..] capital & provided billions [of EUR] for gigantic market reflation packages [..].'

This i.a. means that most of the emergency bale-out loans already provided by the EU did not reach the Greek populace - even those bad, bad state officials - but got sunk into the country's banks.

In the meantime, most recently just 48 hours ago, Greek banks have received additional "emergency aid" from the ECB to prevent breaks in cash flow to increasingly nervous depositors, beginning a slow but increasing bank run at time of writing. If I remember reading somewhere correctly, this alone comes to about 80 billion EUR in total since 2008. And is not reckoned into the national Greek debt, of course!

And, finally, this layman's guess how the Greek banks will do after a "Grexit": All positive EUR bank balances - like people's savings in bank accounts - will be devalued along with the soon following devaluation of the drachma, which would then replace EUR as national currency. But: Most negative bank balances - plus the mounting debts the banks owe to creditors outside of Greece - would "grow" as fast as the drachma is devalued.

Not only would Greece after a "Grexit" then have a multiplied debt toward the EU & IWF immediately after ousting the EUR. But its banks would be even more likely to default, in that event bringing even most of the daily exchange of monies within the economy to a massive standstill. (What follows after that - bartering?)

This 7-year-old crisis was and is one of bad banks! Thus it doth seem to dumb old me...

P.S.: So, are the politicians - like the Greek government of recent years, like Merkel & her diverse finance ministers - to blame at all? I quote experts: 'Above all the governments of the greater countries are co-responsible for the financial crisis. They believed economists preaching the efficiency of financial markets, & were wooed successfully by the mighty & well-endowed banking lobby. So [..] they continually deregulated financial markets and bank trading, and thus made the crisis possible [..].'

Quite a while ago, there appeared a very good ZEIT Online article on practical things the EU foreign ministers could decide on to really & humanely prevent refugees from attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to the perceived European paradise. I was given permission to translate it, so without further ado:

As Europe tried to recently save 700 people about to drown, it sent a Portuguese container freighter. That ship couldn't do much more than roll out its rope ladders and rescue materials to save at least a few of them from a watery grave. A flush of shame should be visible in the faces of the EU's members' foreign ministers because of that murderous weekend, when they met the Monday afterward in Brussels.

For this reason their reaction to the Mediterranean catastrophe long actively disregarded by them can only be: Who handles what task now? Suggestions abound. The foreign ministers could agree on a practical plan of action in a few hours, in 6 parts. A plan, that would be effective in the short as well as the long term. That comes to the rapid aid of those refugees, that are getting into boats today & tomorrow on the coasts of North Africa, and, at the same time, permanently pushes people to no longer attempt the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean that they undertake to live in security.

It would be a chance to give up national egoisms in the face of a thousand drowned refugees. To grasp that a big scare tactic used in foreign policy is a military concept, like the threat of mutual assured destruction that works when opponents armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons face off. But not when people are running for their lives. To prove that the wealthiest continent in the world isn't left helpless by the dynamics of the surrounding conflicts, as could be assumend when observing the deadly scourges taking place in Syria, Iraq or the Ukraine.

The foreign ministers could have agreed, and still can, to implement the following:

A friendly webmaster of a Fantasy e-magazine I've had dealings with asked me if I wanted to attend the Divergent II - Insurgent - premiere tonight at the Sony Center in Berlin. The two main parts' actors and the director would appear on the "red carpet".

The latter turned out to be a number of dark-grey crumbly-plastic mats fenced off on almost all sides. Jealously guarded by men & 2 women in darkish anoraks. It was pretty cold.

A good thousand young girls were pressed against the fences on either side - some bore placards like "we are not genetically damaged".

After many premiere ticket holders passed by - some walking works of art, others ordinary/grinning/gloating - a limousine rolled up. The stars came out. Very late. By now my bones were touching "frozen" (this time no metaphorical adjective).

Lots of screeching by the fans. Endless babbling by a Pro-7 moderator, camera-man & cable holders in tow. Shailene - and "Theeooo!" - on the big screen in the middle distance, scrabbling signatures as-fast-as-they-can on anything papery held toward them.

Then holding each other's waist on the "stage" - a low platform with a movie poster behind them, showing them in black, glass shards flying, big guns in their hands. The lady star has dropped her warming jacket & glows yellow-white in a totally inappropriate double-slit long-sleeved gown. Inappropriate not due to its sexiness, but due to the much-too-cold late winter chill.

He is gracious, smiles. She even more so, just gliding through this brainlessly bright & loud rigidly-orchestrated ritual. That has nothing to do with the cinema-watching experience of that thing, the film, which is being "celebrated" here.

I'm not allowed to photograph, but slip in a wobbly snap or two. Of course both of them come no nearer than 5 metres before they veer off, one after the other. A quick signing splurge opposite for the young adult female fans who have been waiting & yearning for longer than icy me. Then whoosh - into the yawning cinema entrance. And gone.

Those fans were the best reason to try this weird wake out tonight. Dedicated. Determined. Divergent.

Pan focus across a cold ocean, a snow-blown continent away: Our foreign minister, whose surname means something like "stone dairy farmer", happened to mention that the recent letter to Iran's government, signed by almost half the US senate, was foolish & probably destructive. Behind this opinion of his stand his boss, Mrs. Merkel - and probably about 90% or more of the German populace.

Yet one of the signees, a certain senior war veteran, who once ran for president next to a ditzy Northern brunette, took the opportunity to rail at that German guy. Implying Germans are weak - and cowardly, not standing up to Putin in Crimea & Ukraine in general. Not sending in troops & cash & armour to show those pesky Ruskies who's boss.

Well, I don't like Putin, at all. I don't usually root for our foreign minister much, either, because he's done some ruthlessly heartless things in the past concerning one or other German Guantanamo detainee.

But this time, I beg to differ, Mr. McCain! And stand solidly behind my representative to the world. US-American methods of "resolution" have hardly ever helped anyone in particular in the last 2 decades or so - in fact, they've aggravated things & people, caused countless deaths by mechanical proxy & other means, i.a. blown back hotly, mortally, into the US, at least once. It's time the currently rabid bark-up-every-tree Republicans, that you seem to be a part of, shut up & got sent back to the kennel. Stop embarrassing what little is left of US prestige in the world. Let diplomacy, with a lot of hard work & negotiation put in i.a. by that very minister & his boss, take hold.

Give non-US-"regulated" peace a chance.