Europe: a Helpless, Pitiful Elf

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. On the other hand, you can’t solve decades of complex economic problems with diplomacy.

That task has become even more tricky after European leaders failed to get any firm commitments to invest from cash-rich countries like China or Brazil at a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in France last week.

“This current financial turbulence is really eroding the foundations of economic growth and employment in Europe,” European Union Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told the European Parliament before the finance ministers’ meeting. “So the first thing to do in the current situation is to stop the rot.”

Desperate times demand desperate measures, not to mention desperate statements like this one:

FILLON SAYS HE HAS CONFIDENCE IN `WHATEVER ITALIAN GOVERNMENT'