Echoes of Greece's Debt Crisis

Option No. 1 is domestic political suicide, and it might not be smart economics either; slashing government spending and raising taxes during a downturn could worsen that downturn. Option No. 2 seems the best of the lot but has high international political hurdles to surmount. No. 3 would be a disaster for Greece and for the global financial system. As for No. 4, given that there are no procedures for leaving the euro, it might risk unraveling the entire project. In the euro's prelaunch period, a few skeptics predicted that the mismatch between a single European currency and differing national economic conditions would eventually lead to tension and an ugly breakup. The euro, heretofore one of the great political and economic successes of the past decade, is now undergoing a stress test of that hypothesis.

But there is another, even simpler warning for the U.S. economy as we face our own deficit issues. "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked," investor Warren Buffett has said. The U.S. has none of the currency difficulties of the PIGS. We do have a government deficit expected to hit 10.6% of GDP this year and a total federal debt that will cross 100% of GDP in 2012, according to White House projections. The rolling crisis of the past three years has been an embarrassing exercise in exposing the financially underclothed. It doesn't appear to be over--and the U.S. isn't what you would call well dressed.

TIME contributor Justin Fox is the editorial director of the Harvard Business Review Group

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