Australia might join the Eurozone, apparently

Australia has a grand Greek tradition. My hometown of Melbourne is the third-largest Greek speaking city in the World as a result of the Post World War 2 migration. In 2011, Thessaloniki – Greece’s second largest city had a population of 1,104,460 (the overall Metropolitan Area). According the last Australian Census of Population and Housing (2011), there were 123,462 Males and 128,755 Females (total 252,217) who spoke Greek at home although 378,270 people of Greek ancestry were accounted for. Most of them live in Melbourne. Growing up in Melbourne meant there was always a ‘Greek’ element present in my childhood particularly at school as new migrants arrived. But that cultural affinity with Greece is about as close as Australia will ever come to mimicking it. Australia can never become “Asia’s version of Greece” because we do not use an “Asian currency”, we retain total control over our central bank (the currency issuer), and we do not issue public debt in a foreign currency (like the euro as Greece does). The only way we could become like Greece is if we were to join the Eurozone … and then pigs might fly!

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