Bubbles occur all the time, along with financial inventions. The most recent, and controversial, launched in 2009: A virtual currency called Bitcoin that enabled holders to trade directly and to hide their assets from governments.

LONDON - The eurozone economy has passed another bleak milestone.Official figures Tuesday showed that unemployment across the 17 European Union countr...

ATHENS, Greece - German Chancellor Angela Merkel got a hostile reception from many ordinary Greeks Tuesday when she flew into Athens on her first visi...

ATHENS, Greece - German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes her first visit to Greece since the eurozone crisis began here three years ago. Her five-hour s...

A new permanent bailout fund for the eurozone will come in to force later Monday at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg. ...

If no longer -- thank goodness -- the geo-political cockpit of Europe (caught between rival ideologies in the civil war era), Spain cannot be dismissed as a periphery or marginal country out of step with the European project. Spain has all the features of a highly efficient and accountable country, from its ability to produce majority governments from both the respectable left and right, its elaborate system of federalism, and its increased multicultural identity.

From last weekend's elections in France and Germany, highlighting a shift in the populace away from fiscal austerity, to the gridlock in Greece's parliament (and more probable threat that the country will leave the euro), the region has created a conundrum for investors.

LONDON - Renewed uncertainty over Europe's ability to deal with its spawning debt crisis following elections in Greece and France hammered stock marke...

FRANKFURT - Banks in the countries that use the euro held a record amount overnight at the European Central Bank in a sign of unease over the eurozone...

The conundrum is that world needs strong economic growth but debts make this impossible. As "responsible" governments or individuals save to reduce debts, economic growth contracts and makes debts higher.

The idea of a united Europe was always a fable of course, as some of us warned, and it was compounded by a policy of not hearing, seeing, or speaking any evil about the European ideal that was bound to lead to tears.

PARIS (AP) -- Just three years ago, the euro was being praised as the can-do currency that had delivered unprecedented prosperity in Europe. Now, i...

WARSAW, Poland - Of all the twists in Europe's debt crisis one of the oddest must be this: Poles, Czechs and other eastern Europeans, long the recipie...

There already are two currencies: the "Lutheran Euro," characterized by countries that are based on Protestant work ethic, discipline and thrift. Then there is the "Latin Euro," where style is often more important than substance. The euro crisis is this: The "Lutherans" are balking at bailing out the "Latins."

The party that calls itself Europe is over. The sovereign debt crisis afflicting its weakest members has ended the eurozone's political Ponzi scheme -- the proclivity to hand out entitlements today and run up a tab due tomorrow.

There are methods which could easily be used to reform the eurozone with tighter controls. However, demoting the euro from a requirement to some sort of enhanced cooperation or its like will have its problems, largely because of the agreed ethics of such processes within the greater Union.

The race to save the euro, and how it's being conducted, will not just affect bailed out countries' control over their budgets. It will also likely harm what remaining democratic character the Union has by allowing for influence over debtor states' votes in a way the treaties anticipate and forbid.

If, as it appears, there is not enough money in the eurozone and probably the Union to save the euro from the Greek and Italian government assaults on its solvency, can the IMF really accomplish these bailouts on their behalf?