The American Spectator

All the usual characters are present this Halloween night across the Atlantic. But European leaders doing the trick-or-treating aren’t getting the sweet sugar fix they crave. My colleague Matthew Melchiorre, fresh from a year in Italy, comments:

[M]any Europeans aren’t getting treats this Halloween. That’s because the German and ECB houses on the block are handing out austerity apples. And only one type of trick-or-treater eagerly takes those: the nice polite ones who showed up early and go home to do their homework.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi aren’t giving out freebie bailouts to Southern Europe, despite constant haranguing from the Eurozone periphery. Rightly so. Struggling currency bloc members need to reform their economies instead of simply putting off their problems with free money.

Get the full lowdown on Merkel and Draghi’s cast of Halloween visitors from Matthew at Real Clear Markets.