Giving Northern Europe a veto over Southern Europe's budgets will not hold a monetary union together. The euro zone will continue to need the weaker countries to stomach decades of high unemployment to grind down wages.

History teaches that the level of unemployment is not as important as whether the rate's going down.

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

We know there are a lot of people in the unemployment pool that do not match up in their skill set for what jobs are going to be created, and that's an area we've got to keep pressing on.

The U.S. fiscal union has worked, in no small part, by enabling subsidies to the Mississippis without requiring the approval of the Minnesotas. It creates an important form of insurance.

When Texans suffered from the collapse of the oil market in the 1980s, they could rely on the fiscal union to help them. When Texas boomed with rising oil prices in the 2000s, it contributed to the union to help harder hit regions.