Niall Ferguson: Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspective on Current Predicaments

I had posted a link to this lecture earlier but I just found a copy of the video that can be embedded.  This is an outstanding lecture on how countries get too heavily indebted and then suffer a ruinous financial collapse.  If you want to understand what is going on now in Europe, and what is almost certainly going to happen here in the coming years, watch this lecture.  I suggest starting at around the 8 minute mark to skip the introductions.