The main reason the Gold was used as a code was because when I finally finished my short essay, I was asked for a Hot Copper Custom Symbol.
Not normally posting in general forum, this caught me by surprise and I picked GOLD as having some relevance to the topic.
Normally in times of financial crisis gold rises in price reflecting the time honored view that gold is really the reserve currency of the world, not printed paper issued willy nilly by some country that has happens to be the biggest economy at the time.
The question was asked how did it happened.
Well in my view, Greek governments tried to imitate the US by trying to have easy life by borrowing from rest of world while living above their means, rather than putting their own house in order and insure that tax collection was adequate to cover their expenses and interest on borrowings.
It is like giving unlimited credit card to a kid who has no idea of money management. They just spend and spend, pay minimum repayment and keep spending. Eventually it looks like that it can not even afford the minimum repayment. Bank is concerned and wants its money back. For a while one can get by by getting another credit card and borrowing at higher interest to pay the minimum interest on their loans, but eventually the house of cards collapses, piper wants to get paid but there is no money and nothing to sell. So the guilty party goes bankrupt meaning it does not have to pay and the lenders loose the loan money and write them of. If the loans are to big, chances are that the lenders go down with the borrower.
The main difference between US and Greece is that US is to big to fall, whereas Greece would be dispensable, except they are entangled in EU and its currency, Euro. So the Greek problem became problem for the whole EU, which makes the problem a lot more significant. It was one thing for Germany to absorb their fellow East Germans and put up with the economic consequences. After all, blood is thicker than water. But Germans do not like the idea paying of debts for the Greeks, since the problem is of their own making and likely to get even worse, unless Greeks change their frivolous way.
Also it appears that Greeks went against the spirit of EU financial rules with the help of some rather creative accounting helped by US Goldman Sachs. Some people are quite correctly saying that helping a cheat just encourages more cheating.
But on the opposite side of the scales is stability of international financial system and possible chain reaction that could follow with Greek bankruptcy.
