currency rather than adopting the new euro were seen as old fashioned, parochial, reactionary, and out of sync with the new world. that was then. but over the past year or two, britain's position has begun to look pretty sensible. the euro has obvious benefits. no more worrying about dozens of currencies going up and down. but given how it was set up, it also has many flaws. let's take a look at them through the prism of one country, greece, the poster child of the euro's problems. when it first joined the euro zone, it rode a wave of excellent economic growth, about 4% a year for eight years. that's more than germany, more than the u.s. finally, greece had a solid currency and was able to borrow lots of money at low interest rates. but that was the problem. it wasn't really greece's currency. the european central bank in frankfurt was setting rates. tiny greece wasn't even a factor. so athens borrowed and spent like crazy, creating a little welfare state paradise of its own.