Nouriel Roubini, the US Economics professor who has gained fame for predicting the housing bubble, the disaster that would come of poorly understood mortgage backed securities and the eventual recession, and who is now best known for his brutally frank judgements on current economic matters, actually had some kind words for Ireland recently. He believes that we are “in with a chance” because of our long standing policy of attracting high-tech foreign direct investment.
You can hear what the professor has to say in the video above, which was recorded during a discussion on the margins of an economic conference in Australia.
For what it’s worth, the Dutch far right also seems to give Ireland the benefit of the doubt, even if by default. They have been quoted as calling for the expulsion of Greece, Italy and France from the Eurozone, the first two because they have blotted their copybooks and France because Nicholas Sarkozy is seen by them to be interfering too much in the economic affairs of other nations. To illustrate that logic or consistency was never a far-right area of strength, they say nothing about Germany, whose Chancellor has, if anything, been even more prescriptive to her Euro neighbours than the French president.
Should we be worried that the Dutch far right has not singled out Ireland? What are we doing that would please them, or can we hope that they just forgot we were members of the GIIPS group (this is the format I will be using for this group of countries – acronyms that make up pejorative terms are not only intellectually lazy but also fail to add anything helpful to the debate)?
One way or another, the Euro story keeps on rolling.
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