The ongoing global financial crisis is mainly manifesting in Europe at the moment. The above data is from Eurostat, and shows real GDP normalized to have 2007 Q4 at 100. The countries selected are the PIIGS, along with France and Germany for comparison. All of these use the euro as currency, so there are no exchange rate movements involved in the above curves.
As you can see, France and Germany went through the recession similarly, hit the trough in Q1 of 2009, and are now in an ongoing recovery, with real GDP now above pre-recession values.
Ireland is uniquely badly off, with GDP down to only just above 80% of pre-recession values, and still not much sign of an actual recovery.
As of the last data, the Greek economy was contracting, but is nowhere near as badly off as Ireland. Portugal and Spain were recovering, but very weakly.
Ireland is experiencing an event that is on the scale of the Great Depression in terms of the impact on economic output.
Ireland swallowed the hook of neoliberal economics; the idea that you could produce nothing and still extract value from the global economy.
ReplyDeleteIt's like swallowing a grenade.
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeletesome climate stuff to digest, Royal Society has the whole issue devoted to 4°C warming, free to download here:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc
Alex
P.S. - economic crash is not over - expect next big slide in markets and a return to dirty coal economy...