The rescue offers Greece the opportunity for an extended struggle to settle for slow economic growth for an extended period. This debt crisis is not over...

Attempts at austerity and deleveraging in Europe have converted an economic problem into a political dilemma, with leftist governments rising against Germany's austerity-laced rescue packages. Germany now faces a tough economic decision that will involve choosing between a breakup of the current euro system and a movement toward a common fiscal policy in Europe.

Political dysfunction. Partisanship at record levels. Attack politics run amok. And public approval of Congress scraping the single digits (Sen. John McCain is fond of saying it's down to blood rlatives and paid staff).

What do the endlessly repeating cycle of futile Eurozone rescue talks and the endlessly repeating cycle of futile annual UN climate summits have in common? Put more plainly, what accounts for the unreality of both efforts, such that "breakthrough" agreements are soon recognized to be ineffective, if not fraudulent?

Europe is now battling an acute systemic debt crisis that threatens the global financial system and the global economy. This worsening crisis constitutes the largest single threat to the US economy and its financial system

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that our leaders, in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, responded to crises and challenges all too often with measures that attempted to revive the old pre-financial crisis economy rather than with policies that would allow a new economy to grow.

The stage now seems to be set for perhaps the final act in the Euro-zone debt crisis. With its economy literally imploding, social tensions close to the boiling point, and its IMF program woefully off track, there is every prospect that Greece will experience a hard default by year end.

Two new AEI studies analyze the latest polls and give us the historical context to better understand how Americans think about Wall Street, the economic crisis, TARP and the stimulus.