The unfolding crisis that will affect us all

I do not mean this to sound apocalyptic, but there is something happening out there that is bigger than we can know and potentially more destructive than we dare to want to know. It is the evolving catastrophe that is the implosion of the eurozone. It is not a distant thing, it is a now thing. It is not even a “them” thing, it is “us” too.

Whatever happens to the euro for good or ill will affect every single one of us.

We are not well prepared. Banks for all the talk have not been sorted out. Debt exposure is massive in the afflicted nations of Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. British banks are particularly exposed to the “re-insurance” of loans made by French and German banks to Italian and Greek counterparts.

Then there is the question of the pound. Two weeks ago, no one in the eurozone would publicly discuss nations leaving the zone, or leaving the EU altogether: now they do. Two weeks ago no one in authority in the eurozone would openly discuss a reconstructed eurozone with a northern “hard” euro and a southern soft zone. Two weeks in European politics is a long time. There is talk of a federal hard euro and of even closer union than that.

Into this morass add the apparent lack of leadership, as if the catastrophe has sucked the wind out of leadership anywhere in Europe.

And the dangers? We’ve seen in the past how panic can lead to currency runs, banks locking their doors and triggering social unrest. That’s why in the aftermath of war Europe was born as a politico/trading entity from which the euro child, too, was eventually born. In the meantime our exports to the eurozone will be hit as member states dwindle into recession.

Make no mistake this is one of the biggest news stories of our generation, one of the most alarming and all-enveloping fogs of uncertainty since the build up of the second world war.

And yet for now you cannot see it, touch it, smell it. That is the challenge we all face in preparing for the future. As of now, no one, however expert has a clue where we shall all be come Christmas let alone 2012.

Follow @JonSnowC4 on Twitter.