banking system that's the real tragedy going on there well the local joke in athens is that marfan popular bank which is part of marfan investment group there is a joke that m i g which they referred to the company as stands for money is gone now greek banks require thirty to fifty billion euros in bailout and this guy vege enough pulis denies any wrongdoing but his travails shed light on a factor largely overlooked in the narrative of the greek economic crisis which is now threatening to force our phones out of the euro zone and unravel the currency along with the debts many greek banks built up by lending to each other and to associate so max once again with this bank g we see a golden circle of friends in this case the golden circle includes a group of monks what yes that's a group of monks max mark from popular bank was a major lender to an order of greek monks who received swathes of prime state owned land in sweetheart deals and who in turn bought shares in m i g a greek parliamentary inquiry alleged serious conflicts of interest and how bank loans were used to finance m i g.'s wider acti