The PIIGS (Columnist Pat Buchanan's acronym for the debt-ridden countries of the European Union: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) do not deserve the opportunity to trample the pearls of hard-earned wealth from more stable European countries.
If these nations refused to be responsible enough to save state money for a rainy day (and this is a diluvian disaster), they do not deserve any bailout, large or modest, for France and Germany, of which the latter state is propping up the greatest share of the Euro.
The Southern European nations (and Ireland) chose to play fast and loose with tax-payer money, dive head first into a racing-hot housing market, which was destined to bust after the boom like any other speculative bubble (tulips, anyone?).
Even worse, socialist policies in welfare states which have propped the able-bodies to skip work and skirt taxes created the morass of societal helpless which grips these nations, both preventing them from acquiring new sources of revenue in the face of economic stagnation and social unrest. The masses, from the ditch-diggers to the University professors, have no interest in paying up, just in more pay out, a lecherous lifestyle induced by a nanny state headed by timorous politicians who, like indulgent parents, wouldn't say "No" in the better interests of their wards.
Do not fatten the PIIGS with any more bailouts. The euro will certainly collapse with this intervention, but the currency is destined to fail in light of the schlerotic regulations which inhibit its status as a sovereign trading commodity. If Greece, or another other nation defaults, it will ripple shock waves throughout the world, economic pain which at this point is simply inevitable. Yet better for the PIIGS to get slaughtered now than for the entire world to be carved up in economic stagnation, market seizures, and fiscal anarchy.
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