The only possible choice in today's Europe
There is an alternative to the hopeless policy of cuts-cuts-cuts with no light at the end of the tunnel, and I suspect that the evident anger of the voters in Greece, France, Italy and Britain (the coalition did what at last Thursday's election?) will begin to prod it over the horizon of things that politicians don't want to see. It is called bankruptcy, and it is what businesses and people naturally do when they cannot pay their debts. We need to go into bankruptcy, and in a few years the USA will be there as well. This will have one silver lining: those banks that survive the earthquake (and I am at the point where I would not mind if most bankers died of cancer) will never lend to sovereign authorities, leaving the states to use only taxation to pay for expenditure. It would be an unprecedented experiment in cutting our clothes according to our cloth, and I can't think it would be bad.