IF I loaned money to a neighbour whom I knew to be living beyond his means, should I be surprised when he failed to pay back the money owed?

Would I then expect another neighbour to help bail him out by taking on his debt and paying me back?

In the international money markets it seems that everyone, regardless of their lack of liability, must contribute to reduce the bank's losses due to bad loans and defaulting debtors.

Greece owes money to international banks who, not for the first time, did not do due diligence before loaning money. Rather than see these banks suffer the consequences of their poor risk assessment, the European Union is bending over backwards to bail them out, and simultaneously punishing the Greek people for their failure to kowtow to the money men ("Osborne's warning ahead of Greece poll on aid", The Herald, June 30 .

In the past we used to jail gangsters and confidence tricksters , now we frame our laws to protect them and allow them to flourish.

Bertold Brecht had the right of it when he observed: ''What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?''

James Mills,

29 Armour Square, Johnstone.

SINCE it gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire two centuries ago Greece has always lived beyond its means and has been a persistent defaulter on its debts.

The fact is the Greek economy was never strong enough to share a currency with Germany but all sides pretended it was because it satisfied Greek pride and German "war guilt".

Reckless lending by French and German banks financed an astronomic Greek spending spree which included the Olympics but the 2008 financial crisis left Greece begging for help.

The IMF, with no experience of dealing with a nation trapped in a currency union, focused on its budget balance rather than trying to fix its uniquely dysfunctional state apparatus.

In a normal recession, government spending offsets lower private demand but EU budgetary austerity drove Greece into a vicious spiral where its economy contracted by 25%.

I agree with Iain Macwhirter ("The case for Greece to vote No and leave EU", The Herald, June 30) and if I were a Greek I would vote to leave the currency union, but would he agree with me that this fiasco has implications for an independent Scotland?

Dr John Cameron,

10 Howard Place,

St Andrews.

AS we live through an increasingly anxious time for the future of the European Union, I came across this quote from the early 1990s, by the former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors: "Believe me, we won't succeed with Europe solely on the basis of legal expertise or economic know-how. If in the next 10 years we haven't managed to give a soul to Europe, to give it spirituality and meaning, the game will be up."

Recently, those who believe that the countries of the British Isles should stay together are being urged to make a positive case for the United Kingdom, rather than continually emphasising the negative consequence of breaking up. If a positive case is to be made for the European Union, do we not need to dig deeper than " legal expertise and economic know-how", to move beyond the blame game being played between Greece and Germany, to go far further than the nit-picking of David Cameron, even to transcend the apparent helplessness of the EU in face of the huge challenge of the Migrants' crisis and the struggle in Ukraine, and find a larger narrative which really does give "spirituality and meaning" to this European enterprise?

(Rev Dr) John Harvey,

501 Shields Road, Glasgow.