lfm1001

It may or may not ease the financial crisis. Markets don't look convinced. But this Discount Vacheron Constantin drama has at the same time provoked a political crisis in Europe that's redefining the rules of the club. For a decade, the stable euro and its low interest rates hid the profligate spending and structural weaknesses of Greece, as well as of Portugal, Spain and Italy. The Greek blowup exposed another euro-fiction -- that a consensus exists on the Discount Welder about the nature of the "Union." Europe is what people want, or fear, it to be. A Trojan Horse for a welfare state or the free market. "Hostility to taxes and social spending" defines Brussels, as a lefty blogger in Paris wrote this week -- presumably when the EU isn't busy trying to manage competition and expand social protections. Discount Wyler an element of truth in all of that. In good times, these contradictory visions coexisted in this large and complex union. Greece forces Europe to choose. Implicit in the bailout is that "solidarity" overrides fiscal sanity -- or crudely put, that the rich countries, Germany above all, are to pick up the tab for the misdeeds of the Discount Zenith today and maybe the Spanish and Portuguese tomorrow. A decade ago, Germany would only ask where to send the check. This time Berlin put its foot down -- at least hard enough to bring the IMF in, against the wishes of the French and the European Central Bank. Even should Greece get its billions, Europe must still deal with a new sort of Germany.