Well, the people, regardless of how they voted, deserve better from their leaders, as do the citizens of the peripheral countries, from their own governments, from the EU and from the most powerful country in the group. The sad thing is that, even after the fact, there may never be a majority that significantly understood that they need not have gone through it all.

Nor will the USA likely be spared a similar fate, given the stupidity, the entrenched corruption and the deliberately misled popular opinion here as well. Indeed, it is looking more and more likely that the Koch brothers and their hirelings in the "Tea Party" movement may provoke a default unless Obama and the Congressional Democrats completely surrender, or even if they do. The Kochs have their assets privately held and concentrated in fossil fuels and food and may feel they will "win" if they blow up Wall Street in a Cowboy triumph. But Orlov is right in that a collapse of finance will be much more dire this time than in the 1930s, so I will get back to building my garden fence, etc.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

I doubt you feel that I should be sympathetic to the Merkel or the Obama governments, both of which will be fortunate to have as generous an historical assessment as has the Hoover government in the USA.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."