<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Well, the first lesson to learn is don't turn your economy over to German bankers. Greece is suffering because they abandoned their own currency. This led to a boom because it initially lowered their interest rates enabling more borrowing, both government and private. When the world economy collapsed, the value of their currency (Euro) stayed stable but their economy declined, leaving them owing more money than their economy could generate. Instead of being able to devalue their currency, reducing the external value of the debt and making their exports cheaper, they have to do an internal devaluation, squeezing down wages and prices. This leads to a decline in their GDP, throwing the economy into depression, leaving them even farther in debt. The whole downward spiral was what happened in the great depression
where declining economies' currencies were linked to gold at a fixed rate. Greece had other issues with productivity, corrupt governments and tax evasion, but they could have bumbled along except for the great world recession.<br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>The US is not Greece, as we have our own currency, and our debts are in dollars, which are still in high demand. That's why our government bonds interest rates are actually negative. Governments and individuals are willing to lose money to hold US government bonds. It's possible that changes could occur in the future, but so far no other freely-exchangeable currency looks to replace the dollar.<br></span></div><div> </div><div>Ron Force<br>Moscow Idaho USA<br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font
face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Jay Borden <jborden@datawedge.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Ron Force <rforce2003@yahoo.com>; vision2020@moscow.com <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:37 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> RE: [Vision2020] Don't give Butch ideas...<br> </font> </div> <br>
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--></style><div><div class="yiv1052604362WordSection1"><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;">I believe that if our economy is going to have any chance of survival beyond the next 20 years or so, we need to take a HARD LOOK at the lessons being learned over in Europe (Greece, Portugal, etc) in regards to how some of these nations have decided to balance their check book… (so to speak).</span></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;">If we continue down our current path of debt/spending/taxing/spending/spiraling/spending…. then we should be looking to Greece as an ominous foreshadowing of what’s to come in this hemisphere.</span></div><div
class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;">Jay</span></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";color:#1F497D;"> </span></div><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in;"><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";"> vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Ron Force<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:07
AM<br><b>To:</b> vision2020@moscow.com<br><b>Subject:</b> [Vision2020] Don't give Butch ideas...</span></div></div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"> </div><table class="yiv1052604362MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal">Some Greeks Might Have to Pay for Their Jobs<br><br>Reuters<br><br>ALEXANDER ABAD-SANTOS 621 Views10:20 AM ET<br>It's being called the "negative salary": Due to austerity measures in Greece, it's being reported that up to 64,000 Greeks will go without pay this month, and some will have to pay for having a job. Numbers in austerity reports have usually reflected figures in the millions, since they reflect industry-wide cuts (i.e. a 537-million euro cut to health and pension funds). And plans of cutting minimum wage by up to 32% is all but a given in the country. Today's "negative salary"
deal—which could have government employees returning funds— reveals the real human impact of the austerity measures.<br><br>As Zero Hedge and the Press Project report:<br><br>Salary cutbacks (called "unified payroll") for contract workers at the public sector set to be finalized today. Cuts to be valid retroactively since november 2011. Expected result: Up to 64.000 people will work without salary this month, or even be asked to return money. Amongst them 21.000 teachers, 13.000 municipal employees and 30.000 civil servants.</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="yiv1052604362MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";"> </span></div></div></div></div><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>