Comment: Why and how the eurozone got into such a state

The sound and fury around the crisis in the eurozone can be both confused and confusing. Why have we got to such a sad state of affairs? And why the eurozone when the region’s aggregate economic data is better than that of the US or the UK? The root cause must be the inherent contradictions and paradoxes under which the euro was launched. A common currency, with a common Central Bank but no common Treasury, and divergent economies and economic polices. As interest rates converged to German levels, certain countries found themselves over-borrowing and over-spending whilst others whipped u...