Superb article, Ms. Gelinas. Currency Mathematics explained in context with fundamental understanding of human economic behavior. A+

Just returned from Greece last month (a vacation with in-laws who have family ties). Avoiding the tax man is the national past time; people want to blame everything and everybody (ie. the Germans, who just want EU countries to play "by the rules") except themselves and their politicians. The Greeks are proud but have lost their work ethic; they are perfectly happy to let Albanians & Sub-Saharan Africans do menial jobs while many "play" (.."fiddle" while Rome, uh I mean Athens burns..). The whole scenario seems prophetically similar to California's emerging plight, including the "fat" pensions for the excess public sector and their agressive unions.
Germany & France will bail the "seat of democracy" out, but will resent it. I doubt this enabling monetary policy will make the past prime Greek economy stronger without tight fiscal policy also.

Giving up fiat currency sovereignty is madness.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=9632

I strictly recommend not to hold back until you earn big sum of cash to buy all you need! You can take the personal loans or just student loan and feel comfortable

This is understandable that cash can make people independent. But how to act when someone has no cash? The one way is to get the home loans or college loan.

Strange irony that socialist thinking has been discredited on national level, but strongly prevails internationally - the European Union is being forced into a help-me-out organization in which the thrifty, productive members have to bail out the slackers. It does not work on a national level, so why would a German want to raise production for a Greek?

As Kissinger said when asked about the currency union back before the euro was introduced, "its a huge gamble with very little reward"