>> IMO at heart the reason is very simple: You cannot expect to live beyond your means indefinitely and get away with it. Yes, and there are basically two mutu

>> IMO at heart the reason is very simple: You cannot expect to live beyond your means indefinitely and get away with it. Yes, and there are basically two mutually exclusive, and opposite responses to this: 1) printing money (euphemism for it being "quantitative easing") and generating more debt which is just short term fix to buy yourself more time. 2) spending less and working hard to get yourself out of trouble which is only sustainable long term solution. The way I see it is that Germany is pushing the second agenda, but it faces a great pressure to embrace the first solution. This pressuring is orchestrated by US/UK media that are creating panic and atmosphere of inevitable financial Armageddon. This, of course, threatens to become self-fulfilling prophecy if only sufficiently large number of people start to believe in it.