11/15/11 Laguna Beach, California – “Europe is in one of its toughest — perhaps the toughest — hours since World War II,” German Chancellor, Angela Merkel declared yesterday.

Who would argue with her?

The Second World War crippled the European economy. The victors suffered almost as much as the vanquished. Nearly ten years after the war ended, the British were still rationing sugar and meat.

Notwithstanding these hardships, however, the history of the post-WWII European economy is mostly a story of economic renaissance. From the rubble of war, the European Continent produced decades of economic growth.

Attempting to perpetuate and enhance that growth trajectory, the leading economies of Europe thought it best to pool their resources. So they formed the “European Union” and abandoned their national currencies in favor of the euro.

Nice idea. But the execution may have been flawed.

Just like a “group project” in junior high school, there’s usually an A-student in the mix…as well as an F-student. So what happens? The A-student does all the work to make sure he gets his habitual A. The F-student does nothing, but still receives the “A” he never could have earned on his own.

That’s the European Union.

Unfortunately, the F-student is on his own most of the time. He still has to get passing grades in his other courses…like “Tax-Collecting I” and “Remedial Budget-Balancing.” When the F-student fails to get a passing grade, there’s very little anyone can do to change the transcript…other than writing over the F’s to make them look like…Read more…