You have surely taken note of the eerie media silence that followed the daily barrages of real or imagined bad news (like a euro break up would be possible). After the bold Italian package media seems to have lost interest – and as media does drive markets – also there the swings are now more moderate.

So was the whole thing a really a media fabrication? Why this abrupt attack – on countries where politicians had borrowed too much for ages? Why where they all of a sudden considered to be on the brink of bankruptcy? Why where no warning signals raised before? And how much did media hysteria have impact on investors, traders and regulators? Too much probably…

Why did rating companies not react? And why did investors continue to invest in state papers with waferthin margins – when they should have known that highly indepted countries continued to increase borrowing – when a decrease should have started.

Whatever the answers – now we have to look forward and do the proper painful adjustments. Work harder, spend less, export more, retire later and understand that the age of overborrowing in our childrens name is gone forever.

A suitable new years promise for us all would be to not sell our votes with our own money in the future.

And media should promise to stop complaining only about the inevitable cost cuttings when they finally happen - instead raise hell when they do not happen early enough (risking the whole wellfare state).