"Greece will certainly default on its debts, and it is an open question whether Greece will experience some form of revolution or coup... "

"Greece will certainly default on its debts, and it is an open question whether Greece will experience some form of revolution or coup – I'd put the likelihood of that over the next five years as around one in four."

One of the headline comments from this Telegraph piece entitled 'Euro 'will be dead in five years'. A truly fascinating piece, here are a few more extracts (my comments in italics):

'• The economy will grow by well over a percentage point less next year than the Budget predicted in March. No shit, Sherlock, did anyone really believe Alistair Darling/Gordon Brown's pre-election predictions?

...

Two of the eight experts who predicted that the currency would survive said it would do so only at the cost of seeing at least one of its members default on its sovereign debt. Andrew Lilico, chief economist at think tank Policy Exchange, said there was "nearly zero chance" of the euro surviving with its current membership, adding: "Greece will certainly default on its debts, and it is an open question whether Greece will experience some form of revolution or coup – I'd put the likelihood of that over the next five years as around one in four." - I don't think many people realise how close to the edge Greece is, and there bare other countries not that far behind, the UK included.

Douglas McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research said the single currency "may not even survive the next week", while David Blanchflower, professor at Dartmouth College and former Bank of England policymaker, added: "The political implications [of euro disintegration] are likely to be far-reaching – Germans are opposed to paying for others and may well quit."

Four of the economists said that despite the wider suspicion that Greece or some of the weaker economies may be forced out of the currency, the most likely country to leave would be Germany.'