The article falls apart with all of the unspoken assumptions in this sentence: "If the relatively flexible U.S. lost 8% of median income, perhaps Italy and Spa

The article falls apart with all of the unspoken assumptions in this sentence: "If the relatively flexible U.S. lost 8% of median income, perhaps Italy and Spain and Greece have to lose 15%" Why did the USA lose 8%? Did God say that the USA must lose 8%? Could different policies have lead to a different outcome? Perhaps with different policies, the USA would have lost 20%, or only 2%. There are some interesting thought experiments you can do with economics where you start with the premise "All other things being equal, let us compare these 2 variables..." but that kind of thought experiment does not work in this situation, because if the first condition is highly variable and subject to circumstance, then there is no basis on which to make a comparison. It's like saying "Given a lamp, compare an octopus". There is no relevant point from which you can make a comparison. There is the old joke that 2 economists, left alone starving on a desert island, but with many canned goods, could survive fairly well. The one economist simply says to the other "Assume a can opener." What if, in real life, different fiscal or monetary policy would have cushioned the lost of income in the USA? Then we can assume the same might have been true in other nations. The point is, there is no reason to assume that inflexibility is the main variable, unless you artificially constrain the scenario by first saying "Assume all losses were pre-destined." But in real life, they were not pre-destined. Real life is not so easy on assumptions.