Doesn't this, seen from a distance, seem like the same process they went through to lessen the risk of bad loans in U.S. housing? Spread the risk around, and somehow it isn't real anymore?

1) bad loans ar the root of it.

2) splitting the risk (Spain, Portugal, Italy) into into indistinguishable tranches: Japan 20%, U.S.A. 20%, etc...

3) a bad event is almost certain to happen, and we will have derivatives on top of the direct debt to deal with... It will take decades of litigation and bad blood to sort out.