[jules]

Well, Greece has a trade deficit of more than 20 billion on a 200 billion economy. Of that trade deficit, only 1.5 billion or so is to Germany, which is nothing in a 4 trillion economy. I am not sure whether there will be such a cascading effect from leaving the EU. Sure, if Greece defaults on its debts to other EU states, then those states may need to default on their debt themselves, but the market already knows that there is a big chance that Greece will default on its debts or that they need to be forgiven, and Greece is a small country. Even in the worst case when many of the insolvent states exit the EU, the vast majority of German export will still remain. For sure Germany has more to lose if the EU turns into total chaos scenario, but even if there is a big cascading effect it's hard to imagine that, so most of Germany's export will remain even in the face of several states leaving the EU. That's why I think that the life of the average German will not be impacted nearly as much as the life of the average Greek.

You're right though that this discussion of who will hurt more is irrelevant. What has become clear is that a monetary and political union does not result in a more stable Europe. Perhaps the goals should be scaled back to the original goal of increasing trade by reducing transaction costs, rather than trying to have Europe follow the US model.