I can only respond from a UK perspective - and, as you know, we have our own special brand of uncertainty this very day. However, in rough outline I think the problem is as follows:

1. Ultimately, there cannot be a functioning monetary union without closer fiscal coordination; I suspect an overwhelming majority of people in Europe, including national politicians, is unwilling to hand fiscal authority to Brussels.

2. Having a single currency and monetary policy for 'peripheral' and 'core' Europe always has been long-run untenable given the institutional and social rigidities which inhibit inter-regional adjustments.

Points 1 and 2 imply the EUR has been flawed from the outset. The current crisis is clearly laying bare its conceptual weaknesses, and these are getting increasingly difficult for the governing elite to gloss over. Nonetheless, as goes the EUR so goes the entire post-war European project - so the stakes are high.

3. It seems clear that the outlined bailout for Greece is at best a temporary bolstering of liquidty for a borrower that is actually undergoing a solvency crisis. Furthermore, the risk of contagion will likely remain whatever happens to Greece, simply because several of the peripheral economies are non-viable as currently structured. (Incidentally, the guys actually being bailed out are not the idle Greek public servants, but French and German banks whose largesse has made idleness so rewarding for so long.)

4. The pure idiocy of getting Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish taxpayers (not to mention you generous folks in the US of A) to bail out Greece is starkly apparent. As for the less profligate burghers of Bavaria, I cannot speak for them but I can imagine why they would be unhappy.

So in sum we have a governing elite that can see the post-war project potentially unravelling and some of whom probably know in their hearts that bailing out Greece is at best a temporary palliative which is unlikely to stop the rot either for the PIIGS or for the EUR itself; nonetheless - they feel they must "do whatever it takes" (where have we heard that before?). It's notable that over the last 24 hours some of the more recalcitrant elements of the German press have clearly received the memo and fallen into line behind a bail-out which 48 hours ago they were vehemently opposing. On the other hand, the people who get to vote for those elements of the elite who are in public office (a small proportion, it has to be said) are unhappy and angry. An interesting 'stand-off'.

Personally, I would be surprised if the bail-out did not pass over the required parliamentary hurdles. But the situation is extremely volatile, and with Europe being something of a headless chicken anything is possible. Whatever happens over the next few days will most certainly not draw a line under the rapidly evolving debate about the long-term viability of the European Union and of the EUR as both are currently structured - a debate the elite does not want to acknowledge, let alone lose.

Greece is just a "pass-through vehicle". This is in fact another bank bailout. (As a sidebar, it's got to be some kind of comment on the delusional world we're now living in that taxpayers in the other PIIGS are amongst those who are going to be contributing to this bailout of, inter alia, French and German banks. Will Greek taxpayers - if any can be found - get to participate in a future EU bailout of, say, Portugal or Spain??)

If the price of physical gold (i.e., the real stuff, not GS's definition of 'physical') is being surpressed by manipulative paper trading, and I personally believe that's likely, then surely the producing countries are losing hundreds of billions each year in forgone export earnings and tax revenues. Where's the outrage? China might be perfectly happy to hang onto its own output whilst at the same time soaking up artificially cheap metal from the physical market, but there are plenty of other producers that need current revenue more than they need reserve diversification. I've long wondered why they've been so silent in this debate. Have I been missing something?

This would be very useful. I also add my thanks for your work.

Matt - I'll add my thanks as well. Consistently great stuff from you and Steve.

No problem there - just print some more.

I wonder how Cramer would spin that one. Buy the - er - dip??

August 17 update from Australia's Dept of Health reports 460 hospitalised and 100 in ICU. The 7-day moving averages of new cases and of deaths have both been falling over the last week or so. Current confirmed total infections 32,224 with 121 fatalaties. Vaccination programme covering the entire population likely to begin in September (subject to final tests - but so far, so good).

'Better than expected'???