Re: Re: Developments in Cork

@mhenness wrote:

Who knows…the economists have been wrong in their predictions more than once!

They weren’t wrong with regard to this – the rules of the game were simply changed: Mr. Greenspan simply dropped Fed rates post the dot com crash to prevent a recession for the short term. This was followed by the ECB. This created a “perfect storm” for Ireland with the improved fundamentals of the 90’s leading into a frenzy of credit bingeing with repeated relaxings of mortgage lending criteria (ostensibly for the “benefit” of borrowers) allowing the bubble to inflate. Watch it collapse as interest rates hit 4.25% next year.

That said – Mr. Greenspan’s actions and a number of the consequences were predicted by some – e.g. by Eric Janszen on itulip.com as early as 1998.