“Nowhere is it written that the United States can never decline,” says Richard Posner in his analysis of the economic problems befalling the E.U. and U.S. He and Gary Becker propose solutions. “The current European economic crisis is the product of an encounter between a defective institutional structure (a common currency but no common fiscal authority) and an overindebted member state of the supranational institution,” writes Posner. Becker says that “Apropos of comparisons between US and Europe, the US faces many of the same problems as Europe, but generally they are in a more muted form.”