Europe gets austerity, but with few signs of growth

"Fiscal austerity in the eurozone has now become part of the crisis rather than a solution to it," says economist Simon Tilford. The debt burden of troubled eurozone countries is growing faster than their economies. "So this is the absolute worst of all worlds: fiscal austerity, contracting economies and a dramatic increase in the burden of the debt relative to the size of the economy ... Because their economies are shrinking and the debt burdens are rising, it's a very difficult situation, and it's the reason why investors have taken fright because they cannot see, understandably, how various economies are going to grow." And unless they grow, Tilford says, these countries won't be able to service their debt.