This approach called symmetric adjustment, because surplus countries increase domestic spending as deficit countries curb theirs has been an elusive ambition for decades and has always foundered on resistance from the surplus countries.

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This internal adjustment might involve inflation in surplus countries and deflation in deficit countries.

FORBES: Currency Manipulation

With the Eurozone expected to shrink a further 0.1% this year, after contracting 0.6% in 2012, European policymakers will have to work to achieve more symmetrical adjustment shared between core external surplus members, namely Germany, and peripheral deficit countries, Kraemer argues.

FORBES: Spain, Italy, And Even Greece Sell Bonds, But Europe's Crisis Is Far From Over

Adjustment in the 1920s was the responsibility of the deficit countries (Germany and the U.K.) and not of the surplus countries (the U.S. and France.) That one-sided adjustment prolonged the period over which it could be made, and therefore extended the economic pain as did the unwillingness or inability of governments to devalue their national currencies.

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