New World Disorder

Rana Foroohar's analysis of what ails Europe contains some interesting observations [The End of Europe, Aug. 22]. But early on in the article, she reveals that she suffers from the very delusion that underpins all the economic problems faced by Europe and the U.S. She writes that "Britain, like the U.S., has been a center of ... great wealth creation." The correct statement would be "Britain, like the U.S. and the rest of Europe, has been a center of great debt creation, leading to the illusion of wealth." That illusion is now unraveling, despite desperate efforts of governments in the U.S. and Europe to keep the party going.
Alex Smeets, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

Publishing the burning scarlet image of a young man presumably destroying his world wasn't just reporting the news but adding to it in a sensationalistic way. You may have sold copies, but are you selling out a higher good?
Paul Bryan, KATY, TEXAS, U.S.

Your article mistakenly implies that the current "crisis of the old order" is forever going to penalize the American citizen and businessperson with reduced expectations and a lower quality of life. For one thing, the worldwide recession isn't going to last forever. Second, when Americans wake up to the fact that an increase in taxes, along with reasonable spending cuts, is imperative and would again put the nation's fiscal house back in order, we'll be back on the path to prosperity. With the exception of goofballs in Washington and the conservative right, everyone knows having the lowest taxes in 60 years is unsustainable and a foolish fiscal strategy. Supply-side economics, which primarily benefits the wealthy, isn't working. There's nothing wrong with America that Obama's and the Democrats' balanced approach to fiscal stability wouldn't cure.
Ellsworth Frankson, SOUTH BEND, IND., U.S.

The euro zone's current and future crises are inevitable consequences of globalization. What is now being tested is the solidarity among member states: How far will the better-run countries be willing to go to help their weaker brethren nations? Let's hope that selfishness does not get the upper hand.
Leif Lukander, GRANKULLA, FINLAND

To speak of current global challenges as if they meant the end of Western ideology ignores the many lessons taught us by the Greatest Generation. Our shifting economies are more likely birth pains of a new day. We should view and report the future through the distant past, which tells us we are a spoiled generation that needs to appreciate that things have been far worse and learn, as did our forebears, to work for solutions rather than pour gasoline on the burning embers.
The Rev. Russell J. Levenson Jr., HOUSTON

If this marks the decline of Europe, then what were both World Wars, the economic crises of the 1920s and '30s, the Black Death and the Holocaust? Europe will, as always, take this in stride.
Tom Miller, ESPOO, FINLAND

Foroohar's argument linking the riots and economic austerity is severely undermined by Britain's relatively strong position with regard to tackling its budget deficit and, more important, by completely ignoring the real cause of the disorder: a culture of disrespect through a severe social breakdown, not economics.
Jamie Pow, BELFAST