"Europe has a chance to come out of all of this rather well."
The welfare states of Europe have accumulated over 7 trillion Euros (US$9 trillion) in public debt (see sidebar) and that's before their own bank bailouts and deficit-funded economic stimuli are taken into account. Most of them also practise the type of crony capitalism and corporate welfare policies that line the pockets of an entrenched plutocratic elite you supposedly deplore.