Who lent the Greeks the money?

German Landesbanken, among others. The Greeks own a lot of responsibility, but their enablers have been bailed out by the EU trying to avoid debt write downs.

The EU would have been far better off if the Germans had gotten a dose of reality by experiencing more bank failures. The average German thinks the problem is the Greeks, when it is a combination of Greeks and dumb lenders reaching for yield.

"free, competitive marketplace"

If I need to fly Boston to Newark, what are my options?

Hint - the only direct flight is Continental, which is the same if I fly out of Providence.

Having luggage you can manage on your own has nothing to do with nothing.

Most of my domestic flights are business. Invariably, the tickets are purchased 10 to 3 days in advance. This means, invariably, I am in the worst location on the airplane, while having paid the most.

I am the last to board, by virtue of the seating group assigned to my section on the plane, and it can be hit or miss whether I can actually carry on my carry on as the bins are full of crap from vacationeers who paid 1/6th what I did for the flight because they booked 6 months in advance.

This model is insane.