by Caitlin Kenney

Robert writes from Dublin:

I am living in Ireland. We are having an unprecedented economic contraction...in 2009, of around 6.5%. Our banks held no U.S. toxic assets, but we have lots of loans to Irish property developers that have soured badly. Our population is 4 million, and we have put 7 billion euro into our 2 main banks, but it looks like we will need to put in more.

Our budget deficit is going to be over 10% in 2009. Luckily we are in the euro and have some stability from that. Unfortunately, our exchequer was too dependent on property related taxes, great in a boom, but crushing when the bubble pops.

Irish people are not blaming the U.S. subprime for our problems. Our problems are all homegrown, just crystallized by the worldwide crisis. We thought we were different, a unique invention of the brains behind the "celtic tiger", and by borrowing and selling houses to one another we could become very wealthy.