This is a horrible article with some pretty horrible comparisons. It just misses the mark in so many ways and the writing is very poor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/adam-davidson-european-finance.html?_r=1Like Wall Street, Germany is where the money is. Italy, like California, has let bad governance squander great natural resources. Greece is like a much older version of Mississippi � forever poor and living a bit too much off its richer neighbors.
The sovereign debt crisis is at root a demographics issue intersecting with too much spending. With fewer and fewer kids being born and spending going up on a per capita basis, these nations now have no one who can work to pay off the debt. As taxes went up, business activity went down. It is like putting too many cows on too few acres. Eventually the grass dies and the cows starve or escape.
These two books are the best for the US real estate mess.
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393072231http://www.amazon.com/Reckless-Endangerment-Outsized-Corruption-Armageddon/dp/0805091203
