[RyanMcGreal]

I'm not sure why. Devaluation would give the PIIGS some breathing room to get their internal affairs in order, and the worst Germany could expect is some inflation. That seems like a better risk than watching Greece leave the EU and triggering a wave of other defections.

[Uchikoma]

No country is "defecting" the EU. Some talk about leaving the EUR. But even the larger leftist Greece parties do neither want to leave the EUR (which enables them to survive) or the EU. Why should countries - "poorer" ones - leave the European Union when it spends billions of EUR every year to increase the living standard of those countries and spends billions mostly on agricultural subsidies? The European Union has been a large money transfer project in the last 20 years.

[dr42]

Printing money and creating inflation has never historically been found to be a good idea. Germany are not forcing anything on these PIIGS countries, but if they want money they need to make some changes that will get their economies back in shape. Otherwise why would Germany lend them any money if they are just going to fritter it away like they did getting themselves into this mess.

Decades of inept economic, infrastructure and education policies by incompetent leaders has put them in this place.

Germany, meanwhile, has dealt with a the huge unification problem with its formerly communist sister, and they have prospered, so just maybe Greece and the other bankrupt sovereign states should listen to Germany and take the bail out with their conditions.

If you look at it from a bigger picture level, what's happening is that you have a bunch of countries that have a terrible history of running their affairs that are hanging on to the idea of their sovereignty, despite the fact that a more united federal system would be better. Economics is driving Europe into a United States model, where a federal policy making system of government helps prevent this kind of gigantic screwup by Greece and co.