Very much worth noting too that the bailouts ensure banks (mostly German banks) get paid back. Bankruptcy or debt forgiveness means the banks don't get paid back. And now when EU taxpayers get pissed about paying for the bailout, the EU bureaucrats can point at those darn lazy greeks as the problem.

At the end of the day, it's the banks' job to assess risk, they lent money to Greece, and they're only getting paid because of this bailout. What's greece paying in interest, again? Some kind of huge risk premium, probably?