solution. The Eurozone probably shouldn't have admitted Greece in the first place, but now the best option seems to be a long period of disinflation and slow growth. If Greece leaves the Eurozone, it will experience a period of chaos - which may have unpleasant geopolitical consequences, given its tense relations with an increasingly assertive Turkey. 5) For everyone else, problems are much more manageable, and we don't need to rely on the ECB to solve them. Of course, the ECB has the right to buy government debt in exceptional circumstances, but it is understandably unwilling to do so because: (i) as I argued before, the net effect on nominal interest rates may be very small or even negative, (ii)the politicians will feel much less pressure to act and we need a political solution to the sovereign debt crisis, (iii) a political solution is not very difficult to find -- there are many good options and now that Italy and Greece have credible governments, negotiations should be going much faster. So, while the Eurozone institutions are not perfect, they are not fatally flawed either -- and, given the constraints within which they have to operate, European politicians and central bankers have arguably done a better job than their American counterparts. But how does the *monetary* system keep the economy functioning? I suggest its by enabling payments to be made, not just at the level of the banking system (settling accounts) but at the level of the persons in the economy