With the Greek government in turmoil over a proposed referendum on the EU bailout deal one wonders where this is all headed. For at least a year many informed observers have believed that a Greek default was inevitable, but it seems that the political leadership of Greece and the leading EU nations are simply incapable of admitting that fact, so they have spent the intervening months in an effort to prevent the inevitable or, barring that, at least make the default orderly and call it by some other more palatable name. It seems to me that all such efforts are in vain, as the inescapable fact remains that the European Union adopted a common monetary structure (the Euro as a common currency) without adopting a common fiscal structure (the surrendering of sovereign control by the nation-states of the EU over their tax and budgetary structures). This is unsustainable, as events are now bringing into crystal clarity.

Meanwhile, the problems in the Eurozone are part of a larger economic situation that continues to show eerie parallels to the Great Depression. Just as that jarring economic dislocation caused social and political unrest, so we too might be headed for years of unrest.

Nile Gardiner has some thoughts on Europe's folly.