Hi Jane! -- If you think the Euro is anti-American, you must also be thinking the Dollar is anti-European, etc., right? -- Yes, currencies are important in today's world...
Hi Chari -- It's one competitive world..........................
Yes, but I think the bottomline (also as Obama sees it) is that we're all in this together. When Greece fails, it will not just be an Euro thing... just like when the subprime real estate bubble burst in the USA, it was not just an American thing.
The world would, I think, benefit from a single currency. Maybe that's just my own Eurozone take, but I think the benefits are higher than the negative aspects.
Personally, I earned my first dollars from a US employer in 2008 - and I earned my first renminbi from a Chinese employer this year, 2011... Competitive world, yes - but if we're smart, in absence of a common currency, we can diversify our income portfolio 'o)
Chari
It is a global economy. Yesterday I spent a good part of my aternoon reading about the Euro and Euro-zone from the beginning until today on der Spiegel in English. It was a good refresher.
I'm a bit old to consider a world currency, but wonder what my son and my grandchildren might consider. I've been retired for 11 years now. I'm a very conservative investor, but at my age I would be. I live well but I am conservative in outlay, too. (I grocery shop on Wednesday to get the senior discount at my grocery. In hard and soft goods I buy quality because it lasts--also a conservative measure. My kitsch weakness is fridge magnets.)
Sometimes I wonder what my dad's father would think--he was a minor financier as well as an engineer and businessman. Family lore has it that he rather fancied fascism in the mid-thirties but not later.
Hi Jane! -- If you think the Euro is anti-American, you must also be thinking the Dollar is anti-European, etc., right? -- Yes, currencies are important in today's world...
Hi Chari -- It's one competitive world..........................
Yes, but I think the bottomline (also as Obama sees it) is that we're all in this together. When Greece fails, it will not just be an Euro thing... just like when the subprime real estate bubble burst in the USA, it was not just an American thing.
The world would, I think, benefit from a single currency. Maybe that's just my own Eurozone take, but I think the benefits are higher than the negative aspects.
Personally, I earned my first dollars from a US employer in 2008 - and I earned my first renminbi from a Chinese employer this year, 2011... Competitive world, yes - but if we're smart, in absence of a common currency, we can diversify our income portfolio 'o)
“The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity” - Abraham Lincoln.
If you do "know so much" about the situation in Greece--why are you being so dismissive of the sufferings of the Greeks?
Their country is falling apart and more and more Greeks are having to leave their beloved country because they can no longer make any money running their businesses.
If you were really looking at news reports from Greece you would see entire blocks of businesses shuttered up.
It's turning into a no-man's land.
This is an immense tragedy--not "Yada Yada Yada" or "blah blah blah."
And what happens in Europe is going to have a HUGE effect on our own economy--so close your eyes and pretend you can be an Isolationist but that will not stop the economic effects from rolling over you as they will over each and every one of us.
Get over it WG. What do you do on a daily basis to make this a better world? I'm no isolationist but I'm weary especially of Germany and I have driven BMW 3-series cars for 25 years because they are well-engineered, superior in handling and built to last. It is is my own best interest to buy them.
I support any American industry that doesn't send jobs overseas. I have Maytag washer and dryer made here and almost 30 yrs.old, but Maytag doesn't exist anymore. Now it is Whirlpool and they have product built in Mexico.
What I do on a daily basis is support those who serve me well- with joy and enthusiasm. Told one of the Korean owners of my local package store that I was sad for them because now they will need Sunday hours. I converse with them and English is their second language: they appreciate our conversations--and all the grandkids attend GA TECH : they also like my GT front license plate.
Each of us has a best feature--mine is my smile--it lights up rooms and I take it with me whenever I go forward. My bagger at Publix today was so pleased when I remembered he is UGA and grinned when I told him I hoped Georgia would beat Auburn. Waved at another bagger from Ghana who is pleased when I speak a bit of French with him. My favorite bagger is a runner as my children and grandchildren were/are--she will be running the 1/2 marathon here on Thanksgiving. I always, with my son's help, learn her times; she also teaches piano.
I can hang with almost any crowd, WG. In truth, I enjoy it and it is part of my heritage from my earliest days. My major professor in English Lit, who wrote her dissertation at Cambridge, came to my mother's wake years after I had graduated. She was one of my great mentors and she had a wry sense of humor that wouldn't quit.
I wish no one or no country ill. My Dad once told me that every day he tried to make at least one person's day better. He did and he was one successful man.
Again, what do you do regularly and in person to make the world better? And never assume you can teach me with pedantry. I've had superior mentors from day one. My own dad was the best. And he thought I was the "cat's meow"--doesn't get any better. He was brilliant. Dadd.y's girls tend to do well in this world.
If you do "know so much" about the situation in Greece--why are you being so dismissive of the sufferings of the Greeks?
Their country is falling apart and more and more Greeks are having to leave their beloved country because they can no longer make any money running their businesses.
If you were really looking at news reports from Greece you would see entire blocks of businesses shuttered up.
It's turning into a no-man's land.
This is an immense tragedy--not "Yada Yada Yada" or "blah blah blah."
And what happens in Europe is going to have a HUGE effect on our own economy--so close your eyes and pretend you can be an Isolationist but that will not stop the economic effects from rolling over you as they will over each and every one of us.
I recommend your watching one or more of the newa broadcasts that I and others here have recommended to see the faces of the people of Greece who are suffering so much from what you are dismissing as a "Scam."
Your lack of compassion--or maybe just a lack of being informed about this particular longlasting situation which is destroying a once-proud country--is showing....
BTW--it is no longer possible to dismiss what is happening in Europe as "Let them handle it over there" since we are ALL tied together economoically and financially.
Isolationism is no longer a luxury that can be chosen.
No country in our world is isolated fom any other in any way.
I've mentioned before, that you are not the resident guru on any matter.
You and I have very different backgrounds, experiences, on and on.
I understand what is going on in Greece and will know more about Italy in coming days.
In truth, right now our President is conferering with leaders from the Pacific Rim. Good idea. I lived in Southeast Asia and was exposed to major Asian peoples there. I loved merchants whose heritage was Chinese--very sharp pencils in an area were bargaining was required--always done with a smile. I did not like the Indian market. I buy Thai rice and furniture and clothing made in Vietnam.
I enjoyed the time I spent in Greece and loved everything in Rome. I'm concerned about Ireland. Our tour guide in Ireland was Kilkenney-born and we met his mother and and sister, a Religious Sister of Mercy (RSM). My heritage is Irish and a bit English. I'm concerned about Britain, too, but at least they control their own currency, as do we. We won our independence from the Brits long ago but they are, by far, our best allies.
Half my neighbors and schoolmates in public elementary school were third generation Italian/ Americans and with few exceptions the rest were third generation Irish/American. A close friend in grade school and high school had German-born parents.
Europe is no longer the center of the world--hard for some continental Europeans and the RCC to accept.
WG, I cut my teeth on political discussion, national and international. I've truly circumnavigated the globe and had done so at 33. Discussion was highly valued and a developed art form. No one lectured, but opinons were stated.
Your sources are yours; we need not always choose identical sources. We were taught never to wear our emotions on our sleeve--it simply isn't/wasn't done. Impassioned discussion is altogether different.
