The EU was not ready to be a currency union because it does not have the mechanisms to handle asymmetric shocks as we see now. Major differences between EU and US:
1: Americans are very willing to move from one part of the country to another. Europeans are much more unwilling to move even within their own country.
2: Our national budget transfers money from richer to poorer regions; MI is going down the tubes so it pays less in income taxes and receives more in welfare, unemployment, and the like.
3: We like to talk about differences between Blue and Red State but that really pails in comparison to say a Greek vs. a German. As we all have read, tax evasion, and corruption are acceptable at levels that would horrify German sensibilities.
Perhaps everything you say is true but...... a start, an initial trial has been made to solve problems even more enormous.
History, that takes years and years by the way, will give a verdict. Insisting on short term perfection is a losing proposition.
The other big problem I see is that there’s no one government that can really be held accountable for what happens to the Euro. In our country, politicians, like Carter, who spend like crazy to buy votes generally have to face the music when the dollar goes in the toilet (at least, I hope this is still the case).
When Greek politicians do this, they can try and count on the rest of Europe to pick up the slack fiscally. You basically get a tragedy of the commons with inflation.