Standard and Poor's may have downgraded US long term debt for the first time in history but it is the Euro which is in immediate danger of collapsing.

The news that short sellers are now focusing on Italy and Spain after hammering Ireland, Portugal and Greece makes it clear that the one size fits all Euro is not up to the task of creating equal risk and reward across the European Union.

Put simply, Europe will not federalize its debt, there is no United States of Europe and without that concept the Euro cannot survive.

Here in America, every state has its own budget and cost structure but the federal government stands ready at any time to send funds if they are needed.

In Europe, Germany , the strongest economy, will simply not bail out the other economies now in trouble such as Italy and Spain.

Germany knows a little about bailout. The reunited East German needed hundreds of billions in funding just to bring it up to standard with West Germany.

It took the Germans decades to recover from that but now the rest of Europe is clamoring for them to lead recovery efforts for European partners in trouble.

The German people will have none of it of course and that is the central problem at the heart of the Euro experiment.

Countries like Ireland, Greece etc would have devalued long ago and returned to their own currencies but the Euro makes that impossible.

But with Germany refusing to foot the bill for all the madness that occurred in such countries over the past decade, then Europe has nowhere to go but to end the single currency eventually and allow national currencies to find their natural levels against each other.

Given that Italy is the latest country to feel the cold grip of strangulation from their debt this will not stop until it is resolved.

Short of a declaration of the United States of Europe there is no other way but by the death of the Euro to eventually stabilize the continent.