Europe on the brink

Erza Klein takes on the eurozone's current situation:

Europe is caught in a long bout of something that we're very used to seeing after financial crises: extend and pretend. The underlying reality of their dilemma is that there are hundreds of billions -- or maybe more -- in losses for someone to take. If Greece and Ireland and Portugal take them, that means default and likely exit from the Euro. If they default, that means defaulting, in large part, on loans owed to German and French banks, which could cause a banking crisis in those countries. For them not to default, however, means that taxpayers in other European countries have to take those losses.