On the streets of Europe, doubts over Euro Zone

From the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the U.S. to Wednesday’s 24 hour general strike over austerity measures in Greece, there’s a growing sense around the globe that the traditional mechanisms for combating economic downturn are no longer working. The lack of coordination between nations and regions on economic policy is beginning to take a human toll, especially in Europe. On the streets all around the continent, there is a broad feeling that most governments are willing to commit to saving the banks at the expense of workers, particularly those in the public sector. Nowhere is the feeling of “everyone for himself” more intense than in Greece, where the depth of the economic malaise is not merely a statistic. It’s on the faces of every citizen in the streets. Chris Morris, Europe correspondent for the BBC, filed this dispatch from Athens.