Euro Science

„What’s roiling the markets is the fact that the governments of the richer European nations, especially that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Germany, have been putting the domestic unpopularity of bailouts ahead of their evident economic necessity. This might be only a piece of theatre, taking the crisis right to the brink before the need for action becomes so apparent that its political cost is lowered. (Merkel is facing reëlection in 2013.) German politicians seem to have a block about making clear to their electorate just how much the country has benefitted, and continues to benefit, from the euro, mainly through its enormously helpful effect on Germany’s strong export economy. That could turn out to be a historic failure of leadership.

The parliaments of all seventeen euro-zone countries are constitutionally compelled to vote on whether to reform and extend the euro’s too puny bailout mechanism; the measure passed in Germany, but elsewhere the projected margins for the vote are razor-thin. The difference between a safe euro and a euro on the verge of failure is the difference between that metaphorical elephant in the room, which you can ignore, and an actual elephant in the room with you, right now, filling the air with its hot, dank breath. That situation would be unignorable, and the source of a rising panic. The euro zone is already in the room with that elephant; unless some decisive steps are quickly taken, the rest of the world will soon be joining it.”