Lord Wolfson has announced a prize of a quarter of a million pounds sterling for a plan for a painless death of the euro. The deadline is the end of January 2012. Launched today, this is the second-largest prize in economics after Nobel. He says that he is not against the euro as such, but that he realizes that a contingency plan of the sort he is seeking is not something that the governments affected can openly discuss. Of course, he also knows full well that no-one will come up with a plan he is after. The euro will not come even close to a painless death. And the Wolfson Economic Prize will thus cost the benefactor not a single pound. Clever, but no cigar.