As I'm not at liberty to apply reasoned analysis across the whole spectrum of the globe's financial difficulties, perhaps a satisfactory vantage may be gleaned from a regional analysis. Readers in America will no doubt observe many of the similarities that exist between the Irish economic meltdown and the lax regulation which accompanied the implosion of the sub-prime market - not least of which being the expectation that house prices would continue indefinitely on an upward trajectory. The packaging...