Tight constraints on fiscal deficits and an absolute prohibition on monetization by the European Central Bank have prevented an effective response to the post-2008 debt overhang, driving the eurozone unemployment rate to 11.2%. The potential social and political consequences of lost decades of slow growth and high unemployment would be far more serious in Europe, with its diverse national identities and imperfectly integrated ethnic and religious minorities, than in culturally and ethnically homogeneous Japan.