As the global economic crisis grinds into its fourth year, we now have a clearer sense of which countries responded appropriately to the crisis and those that perpetuated or aggravated their situation. That discussion must begin with a comparison of the differing approaches taken by European governments and the United States.

Let’s start in Greece, where I recently gave some lectures about the American presidential elections. Once the center of one of the world’s most influential empires, Athens now finds itself at the center of the European crisis.