Germany, again a linchpin
European debt problems have ripple effects far beyond the continent and are really concerns affecting modern industrial societies that cannot afford all that their citizens want, a Harvard authority on Europe said Monday. “The crisis that we face today in Europe is not a European crisis alone. It’s a crisis of modern industrial society, it’s a crisis of capitalism, and it has every likelihood of becoming a crisis of democracy,” said Guido Goldman, co-founder of Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) and director of German studies. “Modern industrial society is too expensive for people to want to pay for. Therefore, all governments — including the U.S. government, the Japanese government — instead of taxing to pay as you go, borrow. And of course when you get to a certain point, you can’t borrow anymore,” Goldman said. “We are at a turning point of Europe’s history, possibly of the world economy,...