Euro Crisis & Radical Party Votes - Gold Standard Bad?

[JadeDragon]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/opinion/f ... ?hpt=hp_t3

Interesting article on Euro crisis, but check out this statement:
To sustain the euro, the countries of southern Europe are cutting government expenditures and raising taxes in a futile effort to balance their budgets in the throes of a worsening recession. The euro is doing to Europe in the 2010s what the gold standard did to the United States in the 1930s: magnifying an ordinary downturn into a social catastrophe.

And this one:
The euro was a terrible mistake. It is failing now in exactly the way predicted by its critics: a credit boom followed by a depression. The present policy response offers the people of Europe no hope at all, opening a political opportunity for extremists and demagogues. On April 22, the voters of France will tell us just how large that political opportunity has grown.