So Much For Europe

The European Common Market was a good idea, as free trade zones pretty much always are. But Europe's elites weren't satisfied with that; they wanted a politically unified continent that would equal the U.S. and that would empower them even beyond their already-lofty status. The people of most European countries, however, have never been on board with turning their sovereignty over to Brussels. So the European Union has existed in a sort of uneasy limbo. It's always seemed that in a time of crisis, national loyalties would likely reassert themselves. Today, that happened, as Europe's biggest economies were unable to organize a coordinated response to the world-wide credit crisis. It was Europe's biggest and most powerful country, Germany, that served notice on the others that "union" goes only so far: Germany's Finance... [read full story]