The Euro is the Windows 8 of the economic policy design world: In both cases, it’s very hard to understand how putatively smart people worked so hard to create a product so ill-suited to the needs of those who were supposed to rely on it.

That’s yours truly writing at Mother Jones about another way that the designers of the Euro seemed not to understand basic principles of human psychology (not that they grappled honestly with basic economic principles either). I have written before about other psychological failures of the system, in this case I am referring to the false assumption that all Europeans have a strong shared sense of identity which would generate compassion rather than screw turning in hard economic times.

You can read the whole piece here. Far more important than my Euro-ramblings is this: For the next two months that learned knight of the blogosphere, Kevin Drum, will go through the final phase of his cancer treatment. While he is recovering, a passel of bloggers who admire him will be filling in at Mother Jones, so you can keep watching his column with an expectation of blogging activity and I hope also an occasional update on how Kevin is coming along. My best wishes to Kevin and his wife (and also of course, their cats).