Celtic Tiger

There's someone I know who is terribly obsessed with Ireland, and I thought that someone would find this terribly interesting (since Malcolm Gladwell has a unique way of explaining life, the universe, and everything). I know we're not supposed to talk about traditional bloggy items in this forum so consider this a one-time exception:

"In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge."

- Excerpt from "What's behind Ireland's economic miracle**" by Malcolm Gladwell

** scroll to item #2