It is the price of past profligacy.

Greece s fiscal profligacy was the exception rather than the rule.

Getting into debt was long associated with profligacy or fecklessness.

But then both countries upped the ante on America s fiscal profligacy.

Germany s leaders may take comfort in lecturing other governments about their profligacy.

To allay anxiety about government profligacy, the ECB built conditionality into its bond purchase program.

With house prices declining, fewer Americans will be willing and able to continue their profligacy.

Even critics of past US profligacy must admit that the Geithner proposal contains some good ideas.

The biggest threat to German taxpayers is not southern European profligacy, but their own country s banks.

Such profligacy has led to levels of debt that will become unsustainable if we do not act.

And it looked the other way when French and German banks recklessly enabled the Greek government s profligacy.

America s profligacy the fact that the world s richest country could not live within its means was often criticized.

Historically, fiscal profligacy tends to take hold at times like these, with windfall revenues wasted on extravagant public projects.

But perhaps the world should be thankful, because without American profligacy, there would have been insufficient global aggregate demand.

BERKELEY Fiscal profligacy did not cause the sovereign debt crisis engulfing Europe, and fiscal austerity will not solve it.

Trade deficits with China or any other country are part of the price that America pays for its unbridled profligacy.

The response to the private sector failures and profligacy that had caused the crisis was to demand public sector austerity!

In theory, strict in depth monitoring could distinguish genuinely prudent countercyclical responses from profligacy. But in practice it is hard to enforce.

Central banks that buy sovereign debt issued by fiscal authorities offset market imposed discipline on borrowing costs, effectively subsidizing public sector profligacy.

Don t get me wrong, I am not arguing for fiscal profligacy. But the balance of risks has shifted over the past few years.

Theological language that might have decried the credit crunch as the wages of sin, a come uppance for prodigious profligacy, has become unusable.

Overlooking the evidence, European leaders, spearheaded by Germany, misdiagnosed the problem as one of fiscal profligacy for which painful austerity is the only cure.

Of course, one might argue that Asian thrift and American profligacy merely reflect asymmetric demands for credit Asians are intrinsically more reluctant to borrow.

This augmented news reports about Greek profligacy, and thus closed a negative feedback loop by attracting intensifying public interest, which eventually fueled crises in other European countries.

Ultimately, though, it is public opinion that will determine governments fiscal stances, so fiscally conservative public opinion would be a great economic asset, as it would constrain policymakers profligacy.

No leading country in world history has persistently maintained a negative saving rate. Trade deficits with China or any other country are part of the price that America pays for its unbridled profligacy.

Thanks to the profligacy of the current Bush administration (and the prudence of the Clinton administration), average Federal spending as a proportion of GDP under Republican presidents now exceeds that under Democrats during the measured period.

BERKELEY Fiscal profligacy did not cause the sovereign debt crisis engulfing Europe, and fiscal austerity will not solve it. On the contrary, such austerity has aggravated the crisis and now threatens to bring down the euro and throw the global economy into another tailspin.