Progressive wants the Fed to rescue Europe

Dean Baker is muckety-muck at a progressive think tank. He sees Europe as needing help to prevent a collapse. And he thinks he has the solution. Just let the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank make it all better.

Mr. Baker writes:

Fortunately, the Fed has the tools needed to prevent this sort of meltdown. It can simply take the steps that the ECB has failed to do. First, and most importantly, it has to guarantee the sovereign debt of eurozone countries. The Fed simply has to commit to keep the interest rate yields on debt from rising above levels where it risks creating a self-perpetuating spiral of higher debt leading to higher interest rates, which in turn raises the deficit and debt.

Baker's comment is excerpted from an op-ed piece that appears on al Jazeera's website (though al Jazeera wisely denies any claim to the opinion expressed).

Question to Mr. Baker: Since the Fed's policies have failed time after time at home,  do you really think it can do better elsewhere? And if things still go sour, who picks up the tab?