But what if two or three or seven firms are all in trouble at the same time?

The new US Congress is looking for scapegoats for the country s economic quagmire.

But now we see that austerity has plunged Greece, Portugal, and especially Spain and Italy deeply into recession.

As a result, an administration in which many had placed high hopes is lapsing into demagoguery and ineffectiveness.

Indeed, while Asia is rising, the rich industrial countries of the old G 7 have been drifting into a liquidity trap.

Europe has slipped back into recession without ever really recovering from the financial sovereign debt crisis that began in 2008.

So we must try to reconcile the yes and no countries if we are to overcome the crisis into which Europe has been plunged.

Consider the African Union's current efforts to find a solution to the post election political impasse in Côte d'Ivoire.

But these hopes were dashed as international lending dried up and trade collapsed, sending developing countries down the same spiral that industrial nations took.

Lebanon s democracy often looks a lot like a train wreck, and the country has stumbled into armed conflict many times in recent years.

We have seen all too clearly in the past that countries under stress or recovering from conflict have slid back into anarchy and failure.

The Shagari government quickly became mired in corruption and inefficiency, plunging the country into debt and a vicious cycle of unemployment, declining productivity, and social unrest.

The talks bogged down over agriculture, where subsidies and trade restrictions remain so much higher than in manufacturing.

In the process, however, they slipped into an unbalanced policy mix that now threatens their continued growth and financial stability.

After coping well initially, Europe entered choppy waters when confronted with the prospect of Greece defaulting on its public debt.

The disrepute into which the political process has fallen, and the widespread cynicism about the motives of India s politicians, can be traced directly to the flawed workings of the parliamentary system.

But even Germany s Iron Chancellor had to watch as distrust, economic nationalism, and populism pulled the European powers into a downward spiral of trade wars and diplomatic rivalry.

Despite a doubling of its balance sheet, to a little more than 3 trillion ( 4 trillion), Europe has slipped back into recession for the second time in four years.

Some financial systems in developed economies for example, in Australia, Canada, and Singapore have shown remarkable resilience, while others have gotten into trouble.

By the summer of 2008, both the West and India were facing a Pakistan again in the grip of chaos, its border areas in Islamist hands and its ISI out of the control of the elected civilian government.

When Europe fell into a deep recession after 1995, attention shifted to growth, and the Stability Pact became the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) when the European Council adopted a resolution on growth and employment in 1997.

Before I know it, she has skiddled across the parking lot and in between the cars, and people behind me, with that kind of usual religious charity that the holidays bring us, wah wah wah wah.

But now we see that austerity has plunged Greece, Portugal, and especially Spain and Italy deeply into recession. The president of the European Central Bank, as well as the International Monetary Fund, acknowledge the gravity of the problem.

Set in the near future, the story unfolds against the background of a US that has slid into financial ruin and single party dictatorship, and that finds itself embroiled in yet another pointless foreign military adventure this time in Venezuela.

Stolypin never got the chance a revolutionary assassinated him in 1911 and neither did Russia, which stumbled into World War I, leading directly to the collapse of the monarchy and the Bolshevik revolution.

So we have grounds to hope that as the millennials begin to outnumber those still running Volkswagen and other major corporations, ethics will become more firmly established as an essential component of maximizing the kinds of value that really matter.

Kurds will accept the arrangement because they believe that the new constitution guarantees their right to control most of the oil wealth that lies beneath their territory, and because they don t want the blame should Baghdad descend into chaos.

This assumption overshadowed a wide body of research that helped explain why markets often work imperfectly why, indeed, there are widespread market failures.

Although his party was initially credited for ensuring a decade of robust economic growth, the country has spiralled into insecurity and war following the government's decision to wade into the conflict in neighbouring Syria and escalate a decades old conflict with Kurdish militants in the east of the country.

First, some prominent former officials argue that not all of the financial firms that got into trouble in 2008 were integrated commercial investment banking operations. For example, Lehman Brothers was a standalone investment bank, and AIG was an insurance company.

As America struggles with a financial crisis and quagmires in the Middle East and Central Asia, sealing this agreement with India may be one of the beleaguered Bush administration s only enduring foreign policy accomplishments.

Nor does the ECB have reason to be gratified with its strain of quantitative easing. Despite a doubling of its balance sheet, to a little more than 3 trillion ( 4 trillion), Europe has slipped back into recession for the second time in four years.

Though only a miniature version of America s imperial predicament, Britain s current policy, as its new prime minister, Gordon Brown, is defining it, may anticipate the direction taken by the next American president.

Most importantly, while the average debt GDP ratio is no higher than it is in other advanced countries, and consolidation efforts started earlier, the eurozone has been mired in a severe crisis of confidence for the past two years.

It is why Spain and Ireland are in serious trouble, and why even Italy which is on relatively sounder fiscal footing, but has had flat per capita income for a decade and little structural reform cannot be complacent.

For China, there is a deeper meaning to recent global developments. A second major warning shot in three years has been fired at this export led economy. First, the United States, and now Europe China's two largest export markets are in serious trouble and can no longer be counted on as reliable, sustainable sources of external demand.

Monti s government took over from Berlusconi in November 2011, arriving with a clear mandate, and full parliamentary support, to implement the measures needed to restore market confidence and reassure Italy s eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund that the country was not going down the path taken by Greece.

So we must try to reconcile the yes and no countries if we are to overcome the crisis into which Europe has been plunged. And we need to do so quickly if the EU is to deliver on its citizens expectations.