PIIGS bailouts

It seems that the UK is preparing to participate in an Irish bail-out, presumably on the grounds that the UK cannot ignore what is happening next door. The whole euro-zone crisis is increasingly becoming an exercise in papering over cracks as they get larger and larger. So far, there has not been a proper restructuring exercise putting the various PIIGS on a sustainable fiscal path going forward. Rather, it has been a serious of manoeuvres to keep the financial sector afloat with any pain being forced on local populations, so far most notably on the Greeks. We can tell that nothing substantive has been achieved as PIIGS bond yields have yet to return to pre-crisis levels and in most cases are at unsustainably high levels. The sole achievement of the EU has been to seriously compromise the financial strength of the ECB as it has taken on low quality debt as collateral and bought what are effectively bankrupt countries national debt. We are talking about bail-outs, throwing good money after bad just like the Japanese did in the early 90s and so socialising risk.