[JERRY2KONE]

I have been sort of cut off from any real good quality English speaking news living in Prague, but what we have heard about as far as bailing Greece out is this. The Czech Republic was one of the "hold outs" for saying no to Greece. The main reasoning is this. The Czeh Republic is relitively new as a country let alone to the EU. They have suffered operssion and depression on many levels before gaining their own soverenty. They have ome a long way in a very short time, but they have a very long way to go before catching up to most of the other Eu countries. Here in the Czech Republic when they retire there is a Gov retirement system of sorts that pays out something in the neighborhood of $200 to $400 a month in retirement benefits. Comapre this to what Greece does, which is $1000 to $1200 a month in retirement funds for each retiree. So of coures the concenses on this end is F*&^ that. Instead of looking for a hand out from countries that live at a much lower standard of living what Greece needs to do is lower its own standard of retirement benefits. I am not a huge market person so I am not real sure of what the rest of the EU are receving for retirement benefits. I am sure that there is not a whole lot of equality between the EU countries as there are between the states in the USA. So dealing with bailouts in the Eu are going to be quite different. Like you stated Finnster there is going to be alot of growing pains for EU before any sort of equal ground is found for them to work with. As long as you have unequal sides there is going to be no long term reolution. Just like the USA if one state falls there is likely to be a domino effect. This is a risk for the EU as well. If one country falls there will be others, and once this starts just how far will it reach is the only question that cannot be answered. Germany, France, Brittain, and a few of the other giants will survive, but the devistation will be far reaching.