Interesting piece by Emmet Oliver in today’s Sunday Tribune
– comparing the situation faced by Ireland and the UK. Times are tough (grim) on both sides of the Irish Sea. For us the massive devaluation of Sterling has been a killer – hitting our exports and producing this cross border shopping frenzy (further exacerbated by the VAT situation).
The UK has the 60m population to work with – and a currency of which it has control. We have the young population, the low CT rate, the Irish diaspora, a small population and no control of the Euro currency.
Our very real crisis has forced the government to confront the population with a nasty budget. The UK approach for now seems to include putting off the evil day. This would also appear to be the case in the US – although Bernanke is beginning to remind people that having put all this extra money into the economy he will have to take it out again when growth appears again.