Not only that but by the looks of our dollar ....I'm never gonna be able to afford it either!!

If I was you, Fanta, I would stop laughing.
You might think it funny that families in America that barely scrape by in a few weeks of month will not be able to afford food.
I don't.
And instead of pointing in every other direction you should look at your own country.
Your currency is losing buying power, and with GWB printing more of it the process will become faster.

Still funny?

Laugh if you must, but I find this attitude pitiful.

Ive never said bad things about Europe until this group started trashing Americans every chance they get!

I spent 28 months in Europe and traveled around quite a bit while I was.

I loved it, nothing great, London is real expensive, but most of the Europeans loved America, and Americans.

I think it would be safe to say that the ones we have here are bitter, jealous, and not a fair representation of their countrymen or their countrymens opinion of America!

Im sick of their disrespect and my respect for them from now on will mirror theirs!

Trust me fresh, the ones here are not indicitive of the Europeans, and when you get there you will find that the same products you buy here are 4 times as much there!

The Europeans history is ripe with prejudice and hatred. Its still that way, and yet here they are (a few) trashing us!

If it werent for their stupidity 450 thousand Americans wouldnt be buried on their land!

Excuse the off topic, Invisible...fanta...when in the middle of something, sometimes it is hard to see objectively the WHOLE picture.

Trashing the US? Trashing Americans? Nope I would have my butt kicked by Americans who call me friend, right here in these forums, let alone my real world.

Trashing the narrow view? yep every time...in the hope you see more than the arrogance of a small view.

Your country has challenges, so does mine, so does most in this world. We all have our local issues...the difference is rarely do you hear any other nationality stating theirs is the mightiest, and theirs is the ONLY one who is getting it right.

Your country's welfare affects mine, as well as many others, the state of your country affects a lot of the world market.

Your country affects your people, and if you look long and hard, you will see, it is not about 'trashing' your country, it's about showing another view.

You decided others hate your country, that reflects your views, not mine.

i live paycheck to paycheck and groceries,gas and services are going up and up.Thank goodness I have rent subsidie(till the gov.****s that up too).It is very scary time.

Go back and read your own words.

You not as much as others jess and I have showed you more respect!

The others can all go to hell though and thats my American opinion!!

A weak dollar is good for the Government.

Say that the EU has 2 Trillion US in bonds, which were purchased in 2002 at $0.88 = 1 Euro. That means the EU paid 2.24 trillion Euros for those bonds. The dollar inflates to $1.45214 = 1 euro and suddenly that 2.24 trillion euros only purchased 1.542 trillion US dollars. So the EU lost $698 billion. As foreign countries dump the dollar, they will take the hit. The US buys the bonds back and makes a profit. Then slowly allows the dollar to stabilize again. Economics 101, infation is good for the debtor and everyone around the world owns the US debt from China to the EU.

The powerful Euro!!


And it's that time of year again - next Tuesday, for the 13th year running, the Court of Auditors will refuse to clear the accounts because of irregularities.

The European Commission knows how damaging this is and argues that:

• Most of the spending is done by national governments, and so it's their fault for not keeping proper accounts
• The accounting procedure is very tight, and under these rules many big institutions would not pass - the former head of the National Audit Office, Sir John Bourn, suggested that if he was operating under similar rules, the UK’s accounts might have failed
• Most of the errors are technical rather than fraudulent, and could be due to paperwork that’s lost five years after the end of a project, or academics carrying out EU-funded research failing to fill in proper hour-by-hour time-sheets
I don’t think the auditors buy all of this.

They don’t distinguish between money being mis-spent due to bad paperwork and cash going missing because of deliberate criminal intent. I think this year they will find that the situation is getting better on agricultural payments but that there are still real problems with roads and bridges and the like.

Also, the commission does spend at least 20% of the budget and some of this spending is regularly criticised.

The improvement in the Common Agricultural Policy payments is largely because money now goes directly to farmers for the size of fields they own, and this is easier to double check using satellite pictures than the number of cows they own.

But there’s no doubt that between 70 and 80% of the EU’s spending does go through the national governments. There’s talk about countries coming up with their own audited statement saying that all the money has been spent properly. But only Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark have shown the remotest interest.

I want to check some of these claims out for myself and see where things go wrong. But it’s a nightmare pinning down real examples.

This may be part of the story itself. The Court of Auditors doesn’t make public the irregularities it finds: the auditors feel their job is to audit, not to name and shame. The commission deals directly with the nation states, and can't give examples either. The nation states?

Well that’s what we are trying at the moment... If you run a small country and don’t keep your books properly, have built a bridge and creamed off the cash, or you lost the accounts for some fields five years ago, do drop me a line... I promise to be very indiscreet.

I also have an article here that says they have adopted a green card program for immigrants that is modeled after,,,,, OURS!!!

From.....http://www.justsayhi.com/topic/show/49579



WASHINGTON - Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will vote as early as Friday on legislation that would spend $50 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but require that President Bush start bringing troops home.



The money is about a quarter of the $196 billion requested by Bush. It would finance about four months of combat in Iraq, Pelosi told reporters on Thursday.

"This is not a blank check for the president," she said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "This is providing funding for the troops limited to a particular purpose, for a short time frame."

The bill would set the requirement that troop withdrawals begin immediately and that soldiers and Marines spend as much time at home as they do in combat.

The measure also sets a goal that combat end by December 2008. After that, troops left behind should be restricted to a narrow sets of missions, namely counterterrorism, training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. assets.

Bush rejected a similar measure in May, and Democrats lacked the votes to override the veto.

Pelosi said the bill also would require that the government rely on an Army field manual when conducting interrogations.The field manual makes no mention of waterboarding, a harsh technique that simulates drowning and is believed to have been used by the CIA.

Since taking control of Congress in January, Democrats have struggled to challenge the president on the war. Holding a shaky majority, they lack the votes to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate or override a presidential veto.

Pelosi's measure will likely scrape by the House, but become hamstrung in the Senate over Republican objections. Buoyed by recent progress in Iraq, where enemy attacks have declined but political efforts remain in a stalemate, GOP lawmakers are more hopeful than ever that the war is turning a corner. They oppose setting a timetable for troop withdrawals.

Republicans also would likely oppose applying Defense Department interrogation standards government-wide because it would limit the CIA's use of aggressive techniques against high-value terrorism suspects.

On Thursday, the House and Senate were on track to approve $460 billion in annual military spending, as well as a stopgap funding measure to keep the rest of the government running through mid-December.

Without the $50 billion for combat operations, the Defense Department would have to transfer money from less urgent spending accounts to keep the wars afloat.

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the top Republican on the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, predicts the Army would run out of money entirely by January if Congress does not approve some war money.

************************************************************
Could this be where some of the US peoples' money be going?

I have another thatstates that Belguim has been without a government for 149 days!

They cant agree on who should be in charge, the Dutch speaking ones or the French speaking ones. They claim the multiple languages are creating a barrier that might dissolve the country!

Jess, I think Fanta's cd is scratched ... it keeps repeating itself.

FreshM.Air ... Americans on the whole are not hated in Europe. Uneducated loudmouths are disliked everywhere. Being an American one, just accentuates their dislike.

Unfair, but as Fanta is indicative of the type of people who are remembered in your country, then you will always struggle.

A pitbull who closes his eyes when chewing on a bone - never to let go, but never to see what is going on around him.

I agree to a degree, Belushi, I feel though, the eyes that read, and do not post, may see a bigger picture, if others add their input...not in a derogatory, or infammatory way, and also see that other countries, well, posters from other countries, do see that we care for the people of the US.

We may not care for a lot of the political policies, however, the PEOPLE of the US we do care for.

Globilazation is the problem with the US dollar. A trade deficit caused by outsourcing our manufacturing overseas and a lack of protective tariffs.

Big business is selling us out, and globalization is trying to balance the worlds economies!

Now that Europe is catching us it will effect you next! There are still poor countries that lag behind! They must catch up!!

Sometime in the next ten years Europe and us will be somewhere between where we are now and India!! Dont believe me? Hide and watch!!

Where did you leave Timorek?????

pound was buck n half not all that long ago

but maybe the tourist market will increase

weak dollar make coming to the states cheaper

Fanta46,

============================================================
Globilazation is the problem with the US dollar. A trade deficit caused by outsourcing our manufacturing overseas and a lack of protective tariffs.
============================================================

There is no trade deficit, it's a false deficit which is created by only looking at one side of the books. There is a "goods" account and a "capital" account. If you only look at one account, you see a deficit. Look at both and you see that there is no deficit.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams052505.asp
============================================================
Insofar as the grocer example, there are two accounts that I hold. One is my "goods" account, which consists of groceries. The other is my "capital" account, which consists of money. Let's look at what happens when I purchase groceries. Say I purchase $100 worth of groceries. The value of my goods account rises by $100. That rise is matched by an equal $100 decline in my capital account. Adding a plus $100 to a minus $100 yields a perfect trade balance. That transaction, from my grocer's point of view, results in his goods account falling by $100, but when he accepts my cash, his capital account rises by $100, again a trade balance.
============================================================

Thank you Jess....

Yes spider but when on that balance sheet you have a lot of capital w/ very few goods (assets)....or a lot of assets with very little capital then the balance out is your liabilities acct. which is where the problem lies..