THIS THEME CAN’T be stressed enough: what makes Ireland particularly scary for Europe is that it was the first to undertake aggressive action to bolster its banks and getting its public spending under control, long before everyone was using the PIIGS acronym.
Fortunately Bloomberg has a good reminder of what the country’s been through:
“It’s a bit like groundhog day, like you’ve been on the wrong road and have to come back and start all over again,” said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin. “It’s a long way home.”
Right now it feels as though we may get a reprieve in euro crisis news. Ireland is funded through the middle of next year, Greece has its bailout, and generally investors are eager to snap up euros again, as the currency had an amazing September.
But it’s a good bet that Ireland won’t be the last to double-dip into crisis, as austerity fails to improve the finances of countries like Portugal, Spain, and Greece.
Joe Weisenthal is the deputy editor of Business Insider.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say