El Pais one of the leading newspapers in Spain ran an article detailing the last 1000 days of the economic problems in Spain. There are many details in the article about which I was unaware, such as the central role of the former head of the central bank of Spain in implementing an austerity program in his newer role as a member of the EUropean Central Bank–in other words, he was able to accomplish a policy from an international position that he was unable to implement from a national position. The most sobering paragraph reads as follows: “Novelist and essayist Antonio Muñoz Molina warns in a recent piece entitled Todo lo que era sólido (or, All that once was solid) that it is not possible to reduce spending on education and health, legal aid and emergency services indefinitely without destroying society as we know it. Beyond a certain point, there is no return. Things deteriorate little by little, and then suddenly, one day, instead of continuing along lines that we have grown used to, the whole thing collapses, without transition, in the same way that a house that seemed to be an eternal ruin collapses overnight.”
The conclusion is also echoed in one of the leading newspapers in Greece.
The Bretton Woods system (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization) was created in 1944 and the system oversaw a truly historic increase in economic activity. However, the world today is radically different from the one in 1944 and many have argued that the system needs to be overhauled. The Council on Foreign Relations has published an essay advocating some changes it believes are necessary.
World Politics News 
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