ping
GIPS is probably more appropriate.
The “I” is for BOTH Ireland and Italy.
It’s spelled PIIGS here, and yes, if Club Med goes down, Ireland is likely to have problems. Much of their success was propelled by EU development money.
And yes, as I called in the late 1990s, a monetary union without federal oversight of the spending levels of the member states is not sustainable.
It seems to me that the whole idea of the Euro has a fundamental flaw that is just now being exposed. That flaw is the idea that you can have a universal currency across several totally independent political entities that are able to operate without any real fiscal constraints. This inevitably results in some countries going so deep into debt that they reach out for the standard solution to their problem: inflate the currency and borrow more of the stuff to meet your debt obligation. That works (well sort of in the short run) when you are a COUNTRY WITH YOUR OWN CURRENCY. It doesn't work at all when you are a member of a group of nations where many if not most have very little interest in inflating the currency, at least at the rate that it will take to bail out Greece and Spain.
Laboratories for socialism. The disciplined ones like Germany and Japan will fail too, only at a slower pace. The demographics alone are setting up an epic fail.
I predicted this when the EU was formed back in the 90’s. Marrying disparate economies with wild ranges in financial discipline will not work.