Europe’s rescue plan for Greece appears to be crumbling after the country threatened to call in the International Monetary Fund unless Brussels comes up with real money on acceptable terms within a week.

The inability of the eurozone to put together a viable package after a month of talks has dismayed markets, which thought the terms of a deal had already been agreed.

The euro fell two cents against the dollar to below $1.36.

Greek Premier George Papandreou told the European Parliament that his country

is in effect already subject to the full rigours of an IMF-style austerity plan but without enjoying any of the benefits.

savings from cost-cutting measures were vanishing into the pockets of bond-holders through higher interest rates.

a German-led bloc of states is also warming to the IMF

IMF route is fraught with danger

completely undermines the credibility of monetary union.

If they can’t help out a small country like Greece, its not worth going on with the project. Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

Look at our wasted talent: thousands of eager youths and experienced neighbors. With money enough, we could be busy insulating homes, manufacturing useful goods, growing food, healing, cleaning, playing. And look at our idle wealth: vacant factories and land, empty stores and offices.

When a large city depends on one kind of money, it’s like depending on one kind of vehicle - cars only or one bridge. Community currencies aren’t Monopoly money - they’re anti-monopoly money.

Printing our own cash is all-American. During the Great Depression, 400 U.S. cities and towns issued scrip. More recently, in Ithaca, N.Y., thousands of residents and 500 businesses have traded millions of dollars of colorful local paper money featuring children, waterfalls and animals.

These currencies are real money - backed by real people, real goods and real services. By contrast, dollars are funny money - no longer backed by gold, silver or commodities but by less than nothingRead more at www.philly.com

Finance ministers from euro-zone countries have agreed on a rescue plan for Greece.

“The instrument would not consist of loan guarantees from euro-area countries to Greece but probably of a coordinated action at European level, which would make bilateral aid available,”

Greece is struggling with a 300-billion-euro ($410 billion) budget deficit and needs to raise 54 billion euros this year purely to finance its debts.

aid for Greece would “follow the same methodology” as that provided by global crisis lender the International Monetary Fund. Such conditions would mean the imposition of drastic reforms and budget cuts.

As Europe’s biggest economy, Germany is reluctant to bail out Greece and is demanding to see an effort from the country to repair its own finances.

Details of the plan, to be enacted only if Athens cannot solve its own problems, remain vague.

See more at www.dw-world.de

When I read the whole proposal in detail, the fog lifted – or maybe my confusion just reached a higher level. I realised that the EMF is just a smokescreen. The real bullet in his proposal is that countries could leave the eurozone without leaving the European Union. This is not about helping countries in trouble. This is about helping them to get out.

So the entire adjustment burden will fall on the private sector. If life in the eurozone becomes intolerable, exit will become the default resolution mechanism. And when you include the legal possibility of an exit, the whole political and economic dynamic changes, and the threat of an exit might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I had previously assumed that Germany had a national interest in preserving the eurozone, as its exporters benefit more than anyone else from a stable exchange rate.

Some of his suggestions are unbelievably extreme, for example depriving countries with excessive deficits of their democratic voting rights,Read more at www.ft.com

UniCredit has alerted investors in a client note that Britain is at serious risk of a bond market and sterling debacle and faces even more intractable budget woes than Greece.

The Italian-German group, Europe’s second largest bank, said Britain’s tax structure will make it hard to raise fresh revenue quickly enough to restore confidence in UK public finances.

Paribas expects sterling to drop to $1.31

and reach parity against the euro

markets are fretting over how the UK will cover its deficit following the pause in quantitative easing by the Bank of England. The Bank has absorbed £200bn of debt,

Britain’s trump card is an average debt maturity of 14.1 years, nearly three times US maturities and double those of France. This greatly reduces the risk of a “roll-over” crisis.

“Britain’s AAA-rating is highly at risk. The budget deficit is huge at 13pc of GDP and investors are not happy

we may see a further rise in spreads of 30 to 50 basis points.” Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

“Although virtual currency systems are often used to sell digital content, they continue to become more complex — approximating real world currency as they allow purchase of physical goods and services from multiple merchants, offer cash redemption options, and facilitate P2P payments.”

But new laws like the Credit Card Act of 2009 and existing state gift laws may provide some obstacles.

State laws governing unclaimed property, says Hansen, require that the property gets turned over to the state. While larger developers tend to have thought about how to deal with abandoned virtual assets, smaller ones often have not done so, opening up the possibility of legal liability.

And given the current pressure on state budgets, Hansen expects states to pay more attention to unclaimed virtual property as a source of revenue. Read more at www.informationweek.com

“fiat” currency (as in Ithaca HOURS)–issued, managed and guaranteed by a central authority; mutual credit (as in LETS, ROCS, and Time Dollars); or commodity-backed money or scrip that may be redeemed for a particular product or service.

Backed currencies such as e-gold can be issued (or barter exchanges completed) by whoever owns a commodity or service. These systems thus do not require a central authority to guarantee the currency and manage its supply. Money created as mutual credit (like LETS, ROCS, and Time Dollars), as well as fiat money that does not bear interest (such as Ithaca HOURS) is in sufficient supply, thus encouraging cooperation among participants. Demurrage currencies also discourage hoarding and encourage longer-term planning and sustainable investment.

ROCS, Time Dollars and Ithaca HOURS use the hour of service as unit of account.

LETS measures

in the corresponding national currency unit.

Barter and backed currencies use goods and services themselvesRead more at www.transaction.net

There has been a tremendous surge in the use of local currencies over the past two decades. Today there are over 2,500 different local currency systems operating in countries throughout the world. Since 2002 there has been an upsurge in local currency experiments. Such currencies aim to raise the resilience of local economies by encouraging re-localisation of buying and food production. The drive for this change has arisen from a range of community-based initiatives and social movements.

Exchange is one of mankind’s most basic and demonstrated rights. LCC believes local currencies are an established basic right and basic need, preceding state, federal, and global controls. In a balanced scenario a local currency would interact with national and global currencies, but also stand on it’s own, weathering the changing conditions outside it’s local sphere. The LCC has been established as a private member association, a peer-to-peer private-contract forum to serve the needs of its members.Read more at localcurrencycouncil.org

The Peterson/Walker plan would have slashed social security entitlements, at a time when Wall Street has destroyed the home equity and private retirement accounts of potential retirees. Worse, it would have increased the social security tax, disguised as a “mandatory savings tax.” This added tax would be automatically withdrawn from your paycheck and deposited to a “Guaranteed Retirement Account” managed by the Social Security Administration. Since the savings would be “mandatory,” you could not withdraw your money without stiff penalties; and rather than enjoying an earlier retirement paid out of your increased savings, a later retirement date was being called for. In the meantime, your “mandatory savings” would just be fattening the investment pool of the Wall Street bankers managing the funds.

“fiscal responsibility”

appears to be a code word for delivering public monies into private hands and raising taxesRead more at www.webofdebt.com