When Deficit Hawks Set Policy: Meltdown in the EU http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05212010.html

Sanctimonious German bureaucrats and heads-of-state have taken up the cause of fiscal probity and turned a thoroughly-manageable matter into a full-blown crisis that could break up the [European Union] and drag the world back into deep recession...By weakening the state, private industry and speculators hope to grab public assets on the cheap and force privatization of public services. These are the real objectives behind the austerity measures.