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Published: May 26 2012

Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page. Europe is in money trouble. We know this because of an email we received from a 'friend' who writes, "While vacationing in the Euro currency zone with the family, I was mugged by the International Monetary Fund and will have to come up with a bailout package because I had a deficit of 15 percent of GDP. Luckily we still have our passports but the police and the embassy say their hands are 'tied'. The hotel says we can't leave until we settle the bills. I think the kids opened the mini bar and cleaned it out. Am freaked out at the moment. Help!

Not that we don't have our own money woes right here, but if Europe goes down what does that mean for us? We've been on 'staycation' here, so we don't get out a lot. With school programs like 'education' being cut, and the world maps that used to grace the classroom walls burned for fuel, we're not sure where Europe actually is.

Most Americans think Europe is a small part of Canada which is a country. Europeans speak with an accent and use money with pictures of buildings and people we've never seen.

Let's export some of our own expertise and choose a country to help.

Greece is the epicenter of the fiscal fallout and we need to help them out because 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' is one of our favorite movies.

They're trying to get back on their fiscal feet but short of having a Euro-wide garage sale, what can we do? So what if they owe more than they take in. We know the feeling and we're still 'afloat'.

If Greece leaves the EEC should the United States step up and offer to make it the 51st State? We can deed North Dakota to Canada so we don't have to add another star to the flag.

We've always wanted a Mediterranean get-away. Hawaii is stuck in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean and easy to miss. Greece is merely 5800 miles or 2 and a half million kilometers away, and it promises to help us get a handle on that pesky metric system.

We've been thinking about Puerto Rico as the 51st State and, of course it's a tropical island, but Greece has 6000 islands and not many are inhabited!

There's a huge economic component here that will help us immeasurably. Instead of extending tax breaks to the 1%ers, cancel the breaks, deed them an island or two and call it even. That way we'll help populate some Greek islands and provide work servicing their vacation homes and yachts.

When Google Earth rolls out the new maps, just stick Greece in the middle of Kansas. They've got plenty of prairie and could use the mountains.

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