At first, Jean-Claude Juncker was just jabbering about Greece. No, he couldn’t categorically exclude its exit from the Eurozone, but it wouldn’t happen “before the end of autumn.” These words might have thrown the markets into vertigo-inducing tailspins a year ago. But now, the President of the Eurogroup wasn’t ruffling any feathers; and markets went up. That’s how far the debt crisis has advanced. But suddenly the dark floodgates opened, and deep pessimism flooded the airwaves.

Bulgaria, which has a balanced budget, a growing economy, and a top income tax rate of 10%, fires a withering blast at neighboring Greece where the new government, instead of implementing structural reforms, invokes bankruptcy unless it gets more money. And in Spain, which is teetering on economic collapse, protests erupted in the streets as people resist reforms. So, Bulgaria put joining the euro on ice

The new Greek finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, until recently a professor of economics at the University of Athens, hasn’t learned yet the art of extortion that is required to accomplish anything at all during bailout negotiations. And so, at the meeting of Eurozone finance ministers earlier this week, he accomplished absolutely nothing. He wasn’t even able, unlike his predecessors, to get himself into the media with some wild threat about a “disorderly default” or destroying the entire Eurozone.