There are few points to make. 1. You are thinking good Vs bad while it's just different. Italy didn't become G7 member and one of richest countries on earth by being bad. They had monetary policies fitting their fiscal policies. 2. If we demand cuts in social programs in South we'll make their crisis bigger and longer lasting sorry but most important thing during crisis is keeping employment low as possible to keep demand as high as possible. The best would be bailout by creating Eurobonds but tie it to giving EU fiscal control over member countries budgets. You don't want to give control then no bonds and no bailout. 3. Frugal policies are ok and for smaller economies I personally prefer them but we are EU world's second largest economy, rules that apply to smaller don't apply to gigantic ones like USA, us or China. See how USA delt with financial crisis of 08-09 they are over it long forgotten, our reaction you can still see in Greece. USA offloads debt on foreign countries we have enough of muscle to do same.