The idea that separate nations can unite in some common purpose, but with each country retaining its sovereignty, sounds like a great idea, but it has rarely worked. The League of Nations was a flop, and so is the UN. The European Monetary Union is not much better.

Even when the concept of a common European currency was first proposed, there was great discussion of the near impossibility of making it work. In the early 1990s I ran the foreign exchange options business for Bankers Trust, at a time when the process was in Phase I: currencies could float in price, but the central bank of each country was obligated to keep its value within predetermined bands.

The result was that the high-yielding currencies were prevented from depreciating to their natural market values by the central banks' action. For those of us in the trading business, this presented a fabulously lucrative anomaly: borrow low-yielding currencies---Deutschmarks and Swiss Francs---and lend high-yielders like Swedish Crowns and Finnmarks.

In 1994, the system collapsed, but the commitment to unity continued, and today Europe, and particularly Germany, is not very happy with the system it created. The stability of any monetary system is linked inextricably with the economic policies of the entity that issues its currency. Although the money represents collective policy in Brussels, member nations are still sovereign and thus have total control over their own policies, budgets, appropriations, pay schemes, interest rates and deficits. Italy, Portugal and Spain are teetering, but the weakest of the lot is Greece.

This week, with Greece near collapse, the EU had only two options: rescue Athens or throw it out of the Union. Because the latter would demonstrate that the Union can't work, it chose the former, at substantial cost to the richest members, who foot the bill. And there is nothing to prevent more bills. Germany has its own problems, and in any case the system itself is fatally flawed.

The lesson here has implications for all compacts, particularly international ones. When members, like Greece, retain the ability to decide proprietary matters that affect the whole group, the viability of the entity is tenuous. Institutions like the United Nations Security Council have a worse structure: one permanent member can block the will of the entire community, as we see in China's obdurate refusal to support meaningful sanctions against Iran.

In all cases, insisting that participants refrain from doing what they perceive to be in their individual interests is asking too much from most international actors, who, under the slightest internal pressure, revert to decisions that produce a great disadvantage to the collectivity. Inevitably there is crisis. In the case of Europe, it will likely be dissolution, and in the case of Iran catastrophe.

The United States is properly obligated to help the devastated Haitian people in their time of great need, as are other nations, but it is interesting to note that the body that should be in the lead in organizing and delivering aid is conspicuous by its flaccid contribution: the United Nations. It should be noted that the UN's workers in Port au Prince at the time of the earthquake were all casualties, but the organization's leadership in the relief effort has been nearly totally absent.

Despite the efforts of the United States, the situation in Haiti is going to worsen. Because the epicenter of the earthquake was only about six miles from the surface and very close to a stiflingly dense concentration of people, the number of casualties is very large. Yesterday's estimate of 100,000 dead was doubled this morning. Thousands of bodies have been buried in mass graves, but there is not much room to accommodate more of them, and most will have to be burned. But they first have to be found and collected, and that can't happen until heavy equipment arrives to move the tons of rubble that used to be the capital city. Meanwhile, there are three big threats that remain.

--One is dehydration and starvation. Supplies are being rushed to Port au Prince, but the main airport is incapable of handling the traffic, and the road network is not yet clear for convoys to distribute aid.

--With most people homeless and utilities inoperable, sanitation is very poor. There is a real danger of a deadly cholera epidemic, and that will kill many thousands more.

--And desperate people can very quickly become angry people. We have seen massive violence in Haiti before and are beginning to see it again.

Many around the world are donating large sums to help Haiti, and President Obama has pledged $100 million in US Government assistance. But that figure does not include the costs of transportation, distribution and security, and in any case the total bill will be much more because Americans will be in Haiti to assist for some time to come. Meanwhile, the United States also supports the United Nations by contributing about $400 million, more than 20% of the core UN budget. (It is interesting that China, which appears to be in pretty good economic shape, pays only about 2%.)

It is fair to ask what the world, particularly that part of it that needs the things that the United Nations should provide, is getting for the money. It's not getting very much.

The United Nations takes several billion dollars a year to operate, and most of that money gets devoured by offices, salaries and travel, while expenditures for relief in disastrous situations like Haiti are miniscule. The original intent of the UN was peacekeeping, and there is a substantial and separate budget for this function, although I have seen some of the operations and can report that the majority of them are passive and ineffectual. Most of the troops committed to these missions are from countries other than the United States, and they sit idle in fixed installations and neither keep the peace nor do much of anything else.

But since the end of World War II, both the number of nations and the size of the world's population have soared. There are now about 2 1/2 times the number of people on this planet than when the UN was formed, and there exists some expectation---and certainly the requirement---that the United Nations Organization serve a larger humanitarian purpose, if for no other reason than to justify the money that disappears into it. Alas, it does not.

If we can't rely on the UN to keep the peace, and we can't expect it to plan for and lead disaster relief, then it is hard to understand what it does do, other than to provide undemanding employment for minor functionaries and an opportunity for them to flout the laws of host countries without fear of prosecution.