"The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at
the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a
grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a
democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk submitting
their plans to democratic vote after Icelanders twice refused in 2010-11
to approve their government’s capitulation to pay Britain and the
Netherlands for losses run up by badly regulated Icelandic banks
operating abroad. Lacking such a referendum, mass demonstrations...
