The full Monti, and Papademos too

Mario Monti in Italy and Lucas Papademos have substituted the fragile and questioned prime ministers in their respective countries. Monti was an European Commissioner with great experience with the EU institutions, while Papademos was the president of the Bank of Greece and vice president of the ECB. Both are economists. The notion is that now with serious and responsible technical men in charge the chances for a solution, which is still in the view of European authorities more austerity, have increased.

The only possible logical diagnosis in which that would be true is if this would have been a crisis of "confidence." As that is not the case the crisis will continue, and become more intractable. Today, after the Eurozone bonds of almost all countries, including France, were forced to pay a higher risk premium the chief economist of JPMorgan Asset Management said that "Germany [is] the only functioning bond market left in the eurozone." A zone of one.