For a few....
"A struggling village belies Irish recovery; Fiscal gains have no trickle down" by Dara Doyle | Bloomberg News, September 09, 2012
PROSPEROUS, Ireland — As Ireland’s economy emerges from the worst recession in its modern history, the neat, two-street village of Prosperous today is a microcosm of the economic malaise still gripping communities all over Ireland.
While yields on Irish government bonds suggest the worst is over for the nation and point to recovery, it doesn’t feel much like that in Prosperous....
Then Irish know how we feel here.
‘‘It’s a mirror image of everywhere else in Ireland,’’ said Sean Reilly, 66, whose family runs an auctioneering and undertaking firm with an adjacent antiques store in the village....
Investors are more sanguine about the country, the second after Greece to turn to the European Union and International Monetary Fund for a package of bailout loans. While the economy has contracted 15 percent in four years, the government is planning to wean itself off the rescue money by 2014.
Oh, the economy has recovered for investors, huh?
Irish bonds are the second-best performing in the euro region over the past year, and the nation’s austerity efforts have been lauded by figures such as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi as an example for other indebted countries. Based on the bond yields, Ireland now pays less than Spain to borrow.
Why borrow? Why not print your own?
Ireland’s economy grew 1.4 percent last year, expanding for the first time since 2007. That was driven almost entirely by exports and companies such as Google and Intel Corp. with offices in or around Dublin, meaning the trickle-down for the local economy in places like Prosperous has been limited.
That's the example to follow?
‘‘That disconnect between the headline numbers, how the world views Ireland and what it feels like on the ground, is going to persist for some time,’’ said Juliet Tennent, an economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin. ‘‘Consumers continue to be faced with austerity, tight credit conditions, a weak labor market, and high household debt.’’
Translation: We are ALL BEING LIED TO about the state of the economy!
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Newspaper industry not that prosperous these days for obvious reasons.
