I talk a lot about monetary policy and its power on here. A good post on it, with a key paragraph demonstrating just how important it is

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...ian_confi.html

Even worse, they ignored the fact that the US did roughly equal amounts of austerity as the eurozone and didn't suffer a double dip recession. Of course the only important policy difference between the US and the eurozone was the fact that the Fed adopted a more expansionary monetary policy than the ECB. The Fed did not raise interest rates in 2011, indeed it engaged in quantitative easing.
It really is true that the main difference between the US and EU right now is monetary policy. The EU is contracting like crazy and the US is expanding, despite approximately equal levels of fiscal contraction. Monetary policy is god