The German Chancellor may be engaging in hyperbole. After all, there was hardly a stick or a stone left standing in much of Europe by 1945 and it took 20 years for the continent's economies to recover fully. But make no mistake. If the euro can't be saved - if the entire "european project" is at risk of collapsing - the economic consequences might plunge the entire world into a financial meltdown that we might be a decade recovering from. Reuters: "Europe is in one of its toughest, perhaps the toughest hour since World War Two," Merkel told her conservative party in Leipzig, saying she feared Europe would fail if the euro failed and vowing to do anything to stop this from happening. But in a one-hour address to the Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel offered no new ideas for resolving the crisis that has forced bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and has raised fears about the survival of the 17-state currency zone. "If the euro fails then Europe fails, and we want to prevent and...(Read Full Post)