We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.
George Orwell
Obvious thing A: This is what happened to the unemployment rate when a country expanded its money supply and,
1933–45, used the new money to put a lot of unemployed people on the public payroll doing, among other things, building a lot of infrastructure:
If you read the caption, you noticed that this country is not imaginary. It is not Narnia. It is not Middle-Earth. It was the real, actual, United States of America.
Obvious thing B: Europe has a lot of unemployed people, and is on the verge of falling into calamitous deflation.
Obvious thing C: European unemployment is worst in the GIPSI countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland), which effectively have already been suffering deflation for several years now.
Obvious thing D: Europe can't take economic sanctions strong enough to deter Vladimir Putin from doing really stupid, dangerous, oppressive stuff, because Europe depends too heavily on Russian oil and gas. Thus Europe continues to send massive amounts of cash to Putin, which Putin uses to finance more stupid, dangerous, oppressive stuff.
Obvious thing E:
I suppose by now the course of action I'll suggest is obvious. But I'll spell it out, briefly, after the orange dollop of Putin-poo.
Obvious course of action for Europe:
1. Print a bunch of euros.
2. Use this massive number of newly-printed euros to hire a bunch of unemployed Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards to install a bunch of solar panels in their countries, which happen to have the highest solar potential of anyplace in Europe. Hell, France can even get in on this action, too, if Francois Hollande can grow a pair of testicules bigger than Angela Merkel's. (Sorry Ireland, you're left out of this one, due to insufficient sunshine. You'll just have to figure something else out, like maybe telling your banks to go to hell, like Iceland did. Though I suppose it's a little late for that.)
3. These newly-employed GIPS citizens will spend their paychecks buying stuff in these GIPS countries, reflating their economies and lifting themselves and their countries out of poverty, and staving off deflation for the entire European Union.
4. The Germans can continue to buy that solar energy from the GIPS countries long-term, ensuring a steady revenue stream to the GIPS countries.
5. With this massive new energy source, Europe can now tell Putin to stuff his fossil fuels where the sun don't shine (note especially apt use of common metaphor). Europe can stop funding Putin's aggression and oppression. And Europe can now afford to take more drastic economic sanctions against Putin.
6. Europe can enjoy the financial benefits of not spending billions of euros beefing up its military.
7. Oh and, yeah, this also increases the odds humanity can stave off the polar ice caps melting, causing death and suffering for billions of people worldwide. I know, suffering and death for billions is only a minor consideration for the Very Serious People now in charge, but it is something.
If anyone knows Angela Merkel's DailyKos screen name, please send her a Kos message, so she'll be sure to read this. You're welcome, Angie.