Atlantis in the Atlantic?

Just when will the default happen? Ireland is in the maw of bond markets right now, but Ireland only illustrates the extent to which all the polities that are not Germany have been socially and politically immobilised by the debt crisis. The bank guarantee offered by the Irish state made have made perfect sense as a means of averting panic, but there is no political point to in fact following through on the guarantee. Given the extent to which the guaranteed debt was extended by UK banks the real damage would be felt by sterling, not the euro. The time for high politics of the most devious and clinical variety has come, as has the time of popular mobilisation. Machiavelli would have understood.