I just went and looked up some figures and I have no idea where your 20x debt to income comes from. Also Ireland is part of the € so it spreads the load of the currency between all member states, so even if it wrecked itself, it's not going to show up as a failure because it has that communist support from the other state members. The same goes for America, but the only reason the usa isn't already imploding is because oil is still tied to the us$. It might have had the lowest last year (I don't know), but when you force everyone to sit on their hands, you stall out the economy. e: Actually I'd also add that places like London or California have already seen massive localized inflation over the years.