Eire have always had it hard, it boomed for a short time a few years ago on eu grants then fell back when the grants ran out
but despite economic difficulties they have still managed to give the elderly a decent life, that may have to change now with cutbacks
the difference between us and them is that they accepted the euro and as such are controlled from brussells, the difficulties they are in are actually less than ours
there is a common misconception at the moment that this is the financial mismanagement of a recent government, if that is so , why are so many other countries in serious trouble, we are in trouble as the interest payments on our loans were raised due to the higher risks with so many economies on the edge of collapse
this problem started with the equality laws in america making it illegal to discriminate against an individual because they were not in a strong financial position, the result was the sub prime lending problem where money was lent to those who couldnt afford to repay the loan. across europe investment bankers were buying high risk financial packages from the us as the returns were higher, make no mistake the banks risked our money with risky high return investments that ended up worthless , hence the bail out, the increase in spending and borrowing followed by the raised interest to repay on existing borrowing and the country going into the red, fortunatly we are not in the euro or we would have gone under by now
the worst part of this is that the banks used the money given to them to restart the economy to balance their books instead of lending to businesses, a very short sighted view
.. just like the intellectual aspect really, trying to figure out why food so much that was once a luxury is getting cheaper all the time, and yet we are all struggling...
