If Ireland doesn't soon start convincing international investors about its solvency and ability to reduce the budget deficit, the country runs the risk of becoming the "next Argentina'' and being shut out of world bond markets, one of Europe's best known economists has warned.

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator with the Financial Times and former senior economist at the World Bank, said that Ireland's fiscal position was poor and deteriorating so fast it could find it impossible to borrow anymore.

"Ireland runs the risk of being shut out of world credit markets,'' said Wolf in an interview with the Sunday Tribune. "Ireland has to avoid becoming the next Argentina,'' he said. This was a reference to 2002 when Argentina defaulted on a large portion of its external debt. Since then it has experienced difficulty borrowing from global credit markets.

there is more

Ireland risks becoming 'the next Argentina', says Wolf - Emmet Oliver -> http://www.tribune.ie/business/article/ ... -says-wol/

So, Japan, Iceland, Argentina, or Zimbabwe. Which is it to be?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

WB Yeats

Martin Wolf is a heavyweight commentator, no doubt.

Still, I have this niggling suspicion when I hear prophets of doom lately.
Clearly theres money to be made in this at the moment; profits of doom, if you will.

Schiff, Roubini et al.... I dont necessarily disagree with them but take em all with a pinch of salt.

What seasoning do you use when the two Brians speak?

Asbestos.

Back To Business, Emmet Oliver - Dubai's grave warning
What's happened to the emirate has uncomfortable lessons for Ireland

The old joke used to be whats the difference between Ireland and Iceland? One letter and six months. The joke inevitably emerged first from the London financial community, whose members were for many years sceptical (with some justification) of the Irish economic success story.

Last week the joke was being re-worked, whats the difference between Ireland and Dubai? Sunshine and the European Central Bank.

Like the Iceland jibe, the Dubai joke is unfortunately fair to a point. Ireland and Dubai both inflated property bubbles with cheap external borrowings, both places robbed resources from their traded sectors to feed rampant house price inflation and both countries took advantage of bigger economic entities to keep the cost of money down. In Ireland's case the bigger economic entity was the eurozone, while for Dubai the larger entity was Abu Dhabi.

Last week Dubai suffered a wrenching and explosive sovereign debt crisis when Dubai World sought a "standstill'' agreement from its creditors. The international markets naively believed, as they once did of Iceland, that sovereign nations (in this case a sheikhdom) always have well resourced sugar daddies standing somewhere in the background to stand over their debts if trouble arises.

Last Friday Abu Dhabi was being press ganged into performing such a role for Dubai, but most of the markets believe Dubai is on the fast track to becoming Argentina mark II – that is a major global sovereign default.

Chillingly, respected economist Martin Wolf, ex of the World Bank and now of the Financial Times, most recently said if Ireland did not reduce its deficit sharply very soon it could be facing Argentina-style bond pressures and eventual ejection from the sovereign debt markets. As befits the complacency of Irish policy makers, his warnings are regarded as either too shrill or not grounded on the reality that the Europeans would never let that happen.
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So, Japan, Iceland, Argentina, or Zimbabwe. Which is it to be?