Dominique Strauss-Kahn was shortly expected to leave the IMF anyway to fight for the French presidency, which very probably he would have won. But the hot favourite to step effortlessly into his shoes was the current French finance minister Christine Lagarde. She would have continued in much the same vein. She too would have bent the IMF to the apparently sole purpose of holding the European project together. I don't want to say that the European bailouts, which Mr. Strauss-Kahn has so generously supported with IMF money and expertise (that's partly our money, by the way), were definitively the wrong approach. [But] Far from solving the crisis, the bailouts have therefore virtually guaranteed a rolling series of periphery nation crises into the indefinite future ... The trouble with Christine Lagarde is the same as Mr. Strauss-Kahn – she's part of the single currency establishment and she's determined that for now there will be neither debt restructuring nor exits. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: If we pay the Greeks, the euro will be fine.

Free-Market Analysis: While we pointed out yesterday that there are no irreplaceable men, it turns out that Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have provided single-minded backing for the European Union that may prove difficult to recreate. The European Union was failing anyway but it may fail faster now. That would be a big story indeed.