Ever since 2008 the financial world has been roiling because of various forms of insolvency. The most frightening of all developments has been the revelation that certain members of the EU have failed to adopt modernization policies (maintaining cartels and old labor agreements that were unworkable) aimed at making their economies more competitive and that this failure to adapt could spell the end of the common currency and the EU. It begins with Greece but it extends to Spain and Italy. Unlike the US, the EU does not have a Federal Reserve system and the European Central Bank is not even similar in purpose, let alone actual function. When people talk about the EU and its common market as being a potential alternative to that of the US do so with greater and more successful integration in mind. The current apparatus is not well equipped to perform the market functions it needs to in order to restore confidence.