In a letter to the rest of the G20, Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, argued: "Concerns about growth as Europe makes needed policy adjustments threaten to undercut the momentum of the recovery".

Geithner is contradicting himself. Europe's "policy adjustments" cannot be "needed" if they have predictable negative consequences.

But monetarism rules, so we will stifle any budding recovery in a self-defeating attempt to contain debt by containing spending. We all know the projections for Greece's austerity olicies are of a substantial increase in debt-to-gdp ratio with no compensating posivite outcomes except for the creditors who should have gone bust in the last two years had they not been bailed out repeatedly.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan