UK, Ireland /
33% of Poles in Ireland to return to Poland in 2009 [30]
I'll be sorry to see our Polish friends leave Ireland.
Our Polish community has blown an exciting breeze through our culture.
Hopefully most will stay.
Poland's economy is as vulnerable as that of any other country. It is just as heavily borrowed as the rest of Europe. It also has the disadvantage of being outside the Euro zone. It's advantage is its size.
But no economy will escape the downturn.
No boom has ever ended in any manner other than a bust (Read what the OECD has to say on it).
Currently we have borrowings which have used other debts as collateral. Debt built upon debts. Where has all the money gone? In essence it hasn't been there for several years now.
Ireland is in a particularly bad position. As well as the problem of the current economic slump it trades largely with the UK and the US, neither of which are in the Euro zone and both of which have effected the devaluation of their currencies with respect to the Euro by drastically lowering their interest rates, while the ECB doesn't. It also has a land border with the UK.
On the plus side Ireland would be in a similar position to Iceland if it still had its own pre-Euro currency.
The German tail wags the Euro dog and the Germans fear currency collapse more than anything else it seems (memories of 1920s inflation) so interest rates are unlikely to fall much. Not too good for Ireland.
The last two world wars came directly from economic crises.
I disagree. WW1 was due to other factors.
WW2 was largely a result of the terms of the Versailles Treaty and to political failures of the 1930s, starting with the non-participation of the US in the League of Nations and ending with the failure of Britain to go to war over Czechoslovakia.
@bolek
Given a choice between US and Soviet influence in the world up to 1990 I would certainly have preferred that of the US.
Yes, there was a lot of nasty stuff going on, especially the Vietnam war.
BUT the USA is a democratic society where the government is answerable to the people (as in all democracies). So there is always, in theory a reckoning (um, eventually anyway). Nixon was removed for example. The Vietnam war was ended largely by public opinion at home.
The Iraq war is about oil and strategic influence.
The Afghan war is a legitimate conflict. Afghanistan assisted in the Sept 11 attack on the US. The US is entitled to defend itself.
These two conflicts are entirely different and separate.
The US has suffered from very bad leadership under Bush.
Hopefully Obama will do a much better job, starting with the economy.
Was it about coffee?
What? Coffee time, now. Cool :)
Ladies and gents. Please, try to remain on topic.
Thank you.