While holding the eurozone together will be costly and difficult and painful for the politicians, breaking it up will be even more costly and more difficult.

The 24% unemployment reached at the depths of the Great Depression was no picnic.

The 1992 crisis proved that the existing system was unstable. Not moving forward to the euro would have set up Europe for even more disruptive crises.

As for the single market, the E.U.'s landmark achievement, there is no question that a euro zone breakup would severely disrupt its operation in the short run.

More than the Big Mac, Coca Cola, or Levi's 501 jeans, the dollar is surely the United States' signature export.

Why was there so much work-sharing in the 1930s? One reason is that government pushed for it. In his memoirs, President Herbert Hoover estimated that as many as two million workers avoided unemployment as a result of his efforts to promote work-sharing.

The consequences of a collapse would not be pretty. Whichever country precipitated it - Germany by threatening to abandon the euro, or Greece or Spain by actually doing so - would trigger economic chaos and incur its neighbours' wrath.