Earlier today, Angela Merkel issued a dramatic ultimatum about sharing debt loads with other Eurozone countries.

We've often discussed how this would actually be something of a silver bullet to solving Europe's PIGS problem.

Now, we have a map that helps illustrate the point — thanks to our friends at the Economist, by way of Taegan Goddard and Matt Yglesias.

Below you'll see the geography of net federal transfer payments in the U.S. by state.

The more pink the state, the more it takes out of the federal pot than it puts in...(or, if you prefer, the more freeloading off Uncle Sam is occurring).

This is basically analogous to what's happening in Europe... except that Greece and other peripheral states don't have a mechanism for getting transfers, so they're on the verge of going bust.

And here's the same map showing the same stats according to household income:

Looking at you, West Virginia...