I refer to "All the bailouts and austerity and haircuts (i.e., voluntary reductions in debt) in the world won't help these states (and especially not Italy) if they can't generate enough economic growth to pay back what they owe."

So growth is the key? One sure way to achieve economic growth in America would be reducing unemployment and so creating more citizens able to participate fully in the domestic economy, rather than as recipients of some kind of government benefits.

It's startling to see that active programs to create jobs are being stiffed, one after another, by Congress -- and the stiffers offer substitute plans that are little more than pious hopes that some kindly rich people will create more jobs if only they;re allowed to get richer. That's true, in a way, but those new jobs seem to be created more in Mexico and China than anywhere within the US of A.

Current outlook: several more years of continuing debate about whether the US is now in a recession, is approaching a recession or is hovering only inches away from a recession. Current justification for this is getting the present occupant out of the White House, but there seems little reason to hope that things will change much after the January 2013 inauguration of anybody at all on the electoral horizon.

You're right, you're not an economist and it shows -- it's nut just growth, it's the bond markets and how much they are saying these countries need to pay to borrow the money they need to run their countries.

This is what happens when countries run large deficits and accumulate enormous debts -- they become dependent on how much interest they must pay to borrow money to keep functioning.

The thing that leftists like yourself don't understand is that nobody (or very very few) thinks austerity is going to create economic growth and by itself get these counties out of their current problems -- rather it is a way of avoiding the catastrophe of the bond markets charging exorbitant amounts of interest in exchange for the debt needed to run these countries. At a certain point the borrowing costs just get too high. This is what happened to Greece and may happen to us. This is why austerity must coincide with pro-growth policies; but this trick is very very hard to pull off..

Economic growth is being strangled by excess debt. Instead of investing in productive growth, these countries are paying on interest. In the short term it will be a bloody mess but the best solution is for the serious debtor countries to engage in massive defaults. This will hurt more than just the banks but also numerous pension plans. Pensioners could see drastic reductions in their income. Such a plan would require the reorganization most if not all international investment banks.

Alternatively, the ECB could print money, buy the debt and then forgive the debtors a big chunk of their loans. Some economist I respect think this should be done. Personally, I fear inflation.

In any case, those economies will not grow while paying interest that comes to a significant percent of their GDPs.

Well, Stephen, we will never know whether or not the Eurozone can work and spend itself out of this hole -- until the Germans start facing the idea that what they get for bailing out the EU is control over it. (Hitler must be sitting in hell scratching his head in bewilderment.)

But we will never know if the US can emerge with some status from its own self-inflicted economic crisis -- at least, not until someone takes the Republican party out back, lines them up against the wall, and executes them.

If you spent more time thinking about what to say and spent less time writing a concise and nominally reasonable drive-by attacks, we'd all be better off.

You've given no reason to address the actual substance of (any of) your remarks on this site, as they amount to ideologically compelled drivel. I will, however, laugh uproariously at the prospect that Merkel and Co. aren't nauseated beyond belief at the specter of bailing out debtor (more like debt-ed) nations like Greece. Do you truly believe that the Germans aren't extremely Euroskeptic at this point, aside from the insidious reality that their sheer economic might affords the nation a level of political capital of which most can only dream? There is simply no basis in reality that the Germans aren't aware of what they got themselves into, and see their bailouts as a necessary evil(s).

Beyond the hyperbole lies a deep-seated hatred for free-market capitalism as espoused by the (ghost of the) G.O.P.: isn't it more than a tad disingenuous to blame Republicans' reflexive love-affair with free, deregulated markets without mentioning Clinton's 1993 (?) initiative, which had initially set the derivatives market free? Moreover, what is the United States' sovereign debt at after 2 years of a unified Democratic executive and Congress? $14.5 trillion, as of a few weeks ago? The U.S. fiscal system was not rubber-stamped by a purely G.O.P.-led coterie of "1%-ers"; the foundation's been paved by both parties' policies for decades. Get a grip on reality and then you can begin neutralizing your "opponents."

But go ahead and remain inordinately mad at the wrong individuals. Seems like your M.O., as far as your posting on this site is concerned.

Economic growth for Greece cannot be engineered just like that, and certainly not under constant scrutiny from Brussels and Berlin. There is a global glut of both manufacturing capacity and labour and its effects are felt most severely in countries that in a more expansive past developed appetites and expectations beyond the imagination of those billions whose labour yields barely a subsistence Under the circumstances ‘economic growth’ is something of an aspiration, like finding a rich widow to pay off your debts.

Austerity measures call for qualities of communal solidarity that arise readily within a nation under threat, but not in an amorphous entity like the Eurozone which exists in mountains of documents and red tape, not in the hearts of the people.

If there were referenda in Greece and Germany, both peoples would reject the package. All over, the systems by which people are governed, be they monarchies, dictatorships or so called democracies, are being called into question for lack of attention to the voices of the plebs and this ‘crisis’ also reflects that movement.

@Prof. Walt: Having been out of town for some time, finding the comments for the September 26 article closed, I take the opportunity to send my great THANKS here, for the recommendation of Mr Atzmon's very interesting essay, which clarifies a lot about Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Israel in general.

Anyone interested in the discussion in question should read Mr Atzmon's book. Especially the Israel-Firsters. Please do that; and welcome back with your comments after that.