Why the Irish Nationalized Their Banks

Blame the EU. Here's my undoubtedly inaccurate understanding of the situation:

When the Irish banks began to fail because the housing loans they made blew up on them, Ireland, naturally, sought to protect the banks' depositors. If Patrick and Erin O'Reilly's life savings in their local bank were suddenly vaporized as the bank went under, there would be mass povertyand chaos. If Ireland owned its own currency, the Irish Central Bank could print money to cover the depositors and let the banks and the investors go down the tubes. By joining the EU, Ireland lost control of the printing press and so their only option to save the O'Reilly's deposits was to nationalize the bank.

The Irish taxpayer took the place of a central bank printing press. Instead of a quick spasm of default where investors and banks would get slammed with the losses, the losses became a horde of zombies, banging at the doors and windows of the Irish worker for decades to come in the form of practically endless waves of debt servicing costs that have to be paid through their taxes.

The rescue plan being created by the EU and the IMF for the Irish does nothing more than stagger those waves of zombies. It's a series of loans that the Irish will have to pay back over decades. Chan Akya, writing in the Asia Times, claims that this feature, which will play out in Portugal, Spain, Italy and France*, dooms the EU. Even if he's wrong, the article is worth reading.

* - If France goes down the same road, then there really is nothing left of the EU.