Europe’s shrinking economy—bad news or good?

Once again the news of a shrinking economy leaves me with mixed feelings. According to the CBC, the economy of the European Union shrank by
0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2012 after a flat first quarter.

Surely this is bad news. The EU is heavily in debt and suffers from record unemployment—grim statistics indeed. And all of this leads to increasing social dysfunction.

Yet we know that