In response to my latest Iceland-Ireland post, a commenter at The Irish Economy writes,
Ireland and Iceland are like orphans that have been taken in by 2 different foster families. Iceland ended up with a circus crowd. Not very intellectual but people with a lot of cop on.
The Trichets are a very respectable couple who took in Ireland but Mr Trichet has a ferocious temper and he never admits to his wife that she is right when she suggests he should look at the map.
Quite. William Black has a great catch: a Trichet speech from 2004 in which he praises Ireland to the skies. Also, way back then he was pushing the same doctrine of expansionary austerity he has clung to more recently, in the teeth of the evidence.
Same as he ever was. He might ask himself, “My God! What have I done?” But he won’t.