it will certainly make all europeans rethink what the EU means and stands for, beyond a common currency and less border protocols.

it think it's a time where the original concepts will be re-examined and all countries will have to weigh up seriously the advantages of Brussels' interplay with their own nation states.

Iceland sees the advantages of joining, after years of dithering.

fence sitting will be much less of an option.

certain countries would benefit enormously from more 'rational' guidance in their politics, not just their debt restructure.

what fudge is there? cutting back on social services for the poor, shutting hospitals, slashing pensions, IMF style?

or taxing the well-heeled, when they can easily move their gains offshore and out of reach? disincentivising them from keeping their factories in the EU, with cheaper labour markets on their knees for investment too?

 how we can keep this crisis intra-european, when so much of our wealth creation is already geared to foreign markets and labour?

the EU' problem on how to regulate itself will be meaningless if others use guile to game their own systems, like china with her currency now, so even if we did enact legislation to over-ride individual nations and keep our aquis more pure, the fact that others can take advantage of this suggests that until we can get a global currency and regulation system, we are stuck with cowboy capitalism from the atlantic, commu-capitalism from china, energy realpolitik from russia, and slash and burn growth from brazil, india, and the other 'second world' economies.

it's very confusing, and some-one has to lose the way it's set up and going.

i think if all nations concentrated on making their own clean energy, and balancing their energy budgets by reducing the costs through correct investment, europe could prove something important, while serving her own needs and setting a global example.

exports are great, but we need to think more longterm, and foreign markets are too dependent on fuel prices and free trade agreements being honoured.

free trade has not benefitted many people, and consumerism has allowed so much waste, feeding profits for the few, and leaving pollution.

thanks for your comment.

The power of knowledge is in mortal combat with the knowledge of power. It really is that simple... That's the Edenic apple we are all munching on.

Greece got into the jam it's in because joining Europe made it sucker bait. Krugman at least, faintly, acknowledges that. But Krugman fails to consider the implications of what he's saying. Unless and until Europe and the U.S. can police international capital markets at least two things will happen, and not just in Greece. International banks will conspire to set up smaller Eurozone countries to fail. And then the banks will use those smaller countries as speculative piñatas.

Krugman dismisses out of hand the notion that Greece can (or should) exit the Eurozone. "A breakup of the Euro is very nearly unthinkable," he writes. But note that there's a huge difference between breaking up the Euro and having Greece and/or other small countries exit the Eurozone. From the Greek perspective, if Greeks don't want to be penurious debt-slaves to international banks for the next several decades it makes perfect sense to exit the Eurozone, tell the banks to fuck off, print money, kick-start their economy, and invite the tourists back at cheap rates. If Greek priorities are to put Greeks back to work in Greece, they should drop the Euro. The Eurozone would survive.

But the idea of national borders, national identity, protectionism, and possibly profoundly anti-capitalist development models are such anathema to "liberals" like Paul Krugman that they won't be part of the policy conversation. Not, that is, unless the Greeks make them so.

The other thing generally to keep in mind as we watch the Greek crisis play out is that a corrupted government in cahoots with insanely corrupt international banks will everywhere and always contrive to wreck its economy in terms of the interests of the vast majority of its citizens, while the rich get richer. True in Greece. Also true in the US of A.

true dat.

The power of knowledge is in mortal combat with the knowledge of power. It really is that simple... That's the Edenic apple we are all munching on.