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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Miskin (talk | contribs) at 18:43, 20 March 2010 (→Racist?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Neutrality

The neutrality of this article is contested. The article should not include pejorative innuendo about the reasons why journalists use the term. It should not include words like "aryan" or "racist" to qualify a group of people that coined/use the expression (an acronym!!!). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hibasameen (talk • contribs) 16:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pejorative innuendo? Are you joking? The term is an insult and an ethnic slur, what part of PIGS don't you understand? Its use and your defense of it is at best, insulting, at worst openly racist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.128.230.42 (talk) 18:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


BUDGET SURPLUSmjncmjcvnbhjdsf jhdkjhuisda asasgdkjshd hjgsdjkbhd ygsaa ygskjhjsd hsjan cb,juhgcjsn yugkjsdhjk

Spain has had a Budget Surplus during the last years and right now the Public Debt is just 37% of GDP while Britain has a Public Debt of 47% of GDP, Germany and the US a Public Debt of 67% of GDP...so Spain´s fiscal discipline has been demonstrated when others failed.

And about current account, Italy´s current account deficit is much smaller than the US or the UK.

Anyway, being part of the Eurozone, there is not a "national" current account deficit as can be applied to Britain because the whole Eurozone has a current account surplus.

Add that Spain and Greece have been two of the nations with higher income and GDP growth of all Europe, more than the UK and much more than Germany. Spain´s average GDP during the last ten years reached 3,7%, more than the US´s 3,6% and average growth of Spain´s income per head has been higher than the American...


I'm very suspicious of why Spain is in the unsavory PIIGS category in the English speaking press. Listed a figures I just read off of the BBC, of all places: 

  Nation   Debt as % of GDP      Budget Deficit as a % of GDP
    UK       68.6                         13
Greece       112.6                        12.5
 Spain       54.3                         11.25
 Italy       114.6                        5.3
Ireland      65.8                         10.75
Germany      73.1                         3.5



      Source: European Commission/ Economic Forecast 2009

It seems to me that Spain is more fiscally responsible than that category would have one believe. --Scipio-62 06:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scipio-62 (talk • contribs)

FREEDOM FOR INSULTING?

This article is offensive and does not provide any useful information, except the acronym and somebody's stupid joke. What if someone wrote something like Jews were called by Nazis PIGS? Would that be a constructive information? Please DELETE this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.124.67.153 (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Offensive or not, it's a term that is being used and people will want to know what it is supposed to mean. I personally hadn't heard the term before a few days ago when I saw some coverage of the current problems in Greece. I'd also point out that this is arguably not as offensive as the n-word which has an article in Wikipedia.Wjousts (talk) 16:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A quick search [1] suggests the term is used by journalists in notable publications. It is irrelevant whether the term is used to imply negative things about the countries included, even if you prove 100% that they are untrue (which would be original research). Adding context/criticism of the term and how it is used from a notable source would be beneficial of course. --86.142.97.137 (talk) 13:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will anyone write an article about the economy of the SWINES too? SWINES = Scottish, Welsh, Irish (North), English Scum

hell yeah i find a pattern somewhere i erased a dumbass link ... please do not ban my ip. and yeah pigs come on... let us have invent another acronym like the fuks france united kingdom swizterland or finland uganda cape verte kenya sweden. and find a linkage in between.. havah agilah Salaam Aleikum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.84.119.76 (talk) 04:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If either of those terms were notable, rather than something you just made up, they would warrant an article.Wjousts (talk) 16:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PIIGS usage has resurged, entry needs to be updated

417 hits in news.google.com on 5 February 2010. Don't know entry evolution rules, but PIIGS is most common usage now; does entry get shifted over to new PIIGS wiki entry instead of being "Redirected from PIIGS"? Does another entry get created? Reference to "used mostly in 2008" should be struck since word is in common usage now once again. See large quantity of news regarding Greek debt, government wage cuts, strikes, money printing, hidden/secret debt (whether true or not), etc. Contrary to the contention in the article, Ireland's economy is weaker than Italy's and while both could be included in PIIGS, most knowledgeable with international economies would never replace Ireland with Italy. Whether it is offensive or not, it is now in common usage by the financial media and thus should NOT be struck from wikipedia. However, the entry needs to be refined, added to, etc.Rockshop (talk) 03:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)rockshop, 5 February 2010[reply]

this is a racist/nationalist acronym by british nationalist extremists

it's so obvious; they hate the euro, they hate the european union, now they regressed to this low level of pathetic attacks; calling whole countries PIGS? really? pathetic. get some sources to support it cause it's so obvious.

To see what kind of hatred some nationalists English hold for Greece check this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-de7q3fbn0 (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4MAifsp-8E (part 2)

they openly,and agressively, libel greece without any representation.

--212.54.217.107 (talk) 04:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is obvious to you. I suspect it could be true. But a so bold a statement needs a citation. -- Cjensen (talk) 04:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest to put Ireland on the map per the article

Or is the offensive word too self-offensive to the English? --94.70.65.212 (talk) 16:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Jjok (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would someone transform those Google links to more meaningful list of references? --Jjok (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article Improvements

A number of article changes have been made to document the wide use of the term dating back decades. The term does not spring from 2008 or late 2009 as was in the entry. Let's be professional as to the changes here.99.144.243.71 (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question about refs in lead, do they need to be removed or moved? I added them to support the text as it appeared, rightly it seems, that there was some misunderstandings about the term. Advise please?99.144.243.71 (talk) 22:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PIGS term created in 2009 by english press? No.

Here is the well researched and referenced intro to the actual term:

PIGS, or PIIGS is an acronym used by international bond analysts,[1][2][3] academics,[4][5][6] and by the international economic press[2] to refer to the mediterranean economies of the current European Union, (specifically in regards issues related to the soverign debt market) of southern Europe: Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, with Ireland sometimes found more recently[3] as the additional "I" or in lieu of Italy.[7][8] Because of its vernacular connotation, some news and economic organisations have denounced or banned its usage.

  1. ^ Hugo M. Kaufmann Musings on the European Economic and Monetary Union in Dean J. Kotlowski ed. "The European Union: From Jean Monnet to the Euro". Athens, Ohio University Press, 2000, p. 33-53. ISBN 0-8214-1331-7
  2. ^ Roberto Tam borini, Ferdinando Targetti The crisis of the stability pact and a proposal in Philip Arestis, J. S. L. McCombie, Roger William Vickerman, A. P. Thirlwall eds. "Growth and Economic Development. Essays in Honour of A.P. Tirwall", Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006. ISBN 9781843768784
  3. ^ Simon Serfaty "The European finality debate and its national dimensions" CSIS Press, 2003, p. 181, 282. ISBN 9780892064274
  4. ^ João Sousa Andrade "The PIGS, does the Group Exist? An empirical macroeconomic analysis based on the Okun Law" Estudos do GEMF, 11 (2009).
  5. ^ Mats Berdal, Pál Dunay, John Lewis Gaddis, Curt Gasteyger, Victor-Yves Ghebali, William I. Hitchcock, André Liebich, Andrew E. Manning, Yuri Nazarkin, Kurt R. Spillmann, Fred Tanner, Gregory F. Treverton, Marten van Heuven, Andreas Wenger, William C. Wohlforth Towards the 21th Century: Trends in Post-Cold War International Security Policy Bern, Peter Lang, (1999), Abbreviation, in Studies in Contemporary History and Security Policy, Series Volume 4. ISBN 3-906764-31-1
  6. ^ Tanja A. Börzel "Pace-Setting, Foot-Dragging, and Fence-Sitting. Member State Responses to Europeanization", Queen’s Papers on Europeanisation, 4/2001. ISSN 1477-1861.
  7. ^ "Europe's PIGS: Country by country". BBC NEWS. 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  8. ^ Daniel Gros (2010-01-28). "Greek burdens ensure some Pigs won't fly". Financial Times. Retrieved 2010-02-05.

That's it. 99.144.243.71 (talk) 22:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RE: PIIGS AND OTHER PORCINE STORIES…I’m not sure this has anything to do with religion or dietary laws or with “Nordic” City snobs patronizing Southern Europeans… It’s just a ‘porte-manteau’ easy-to-remember financial term used by traders and economists on both sides of the Atlantic. Re: the “Proposed Corrective Policies” paragraph I’ve started in the article on PIIGS, that DinDraithoum dude keeps on erasing all additions to the article (including mine). He’s adamant this is some kind of “linguistics” orientated article about the acronym’s semantic roots or something, and doesn’t want to understand the real/underlying topic is the current debt crisis in southern EU countries…..I’m at loss for words: the man simply doesn’t want to understand!! Moorehaus —Preceding undated comment added 23:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]

See 1) Wikipedia:OFFTOPIC. 2) Wikipedia:No original research. 3) Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a newspaper. I will be posting about this on the OR noticeboard sometime this evening. DinDraithou (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Despite being challenged, you have failed to explain why and how you believe these policies are being breached. Instead of running off to noticeboards, why don't you actually try to resolve the problem in the normal way? -Rrius (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Corrective Policies?

I feel that some editors are making this article do more then it should. This is a term article to explain what the term means, how it came about, and why some people don't like it. It shouldn't have sections that argue how states can be removed from the term or a blow-by-blow account of what's currently happening to these individual country. Thoughts? --Patrick (talk) 10:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely, and have removed that section repeatedly, only to see it restored and rather wildly defended. It is what I plan to report on the OR/SYNTH noticeboard (mentioned above) when I can get around to it. I'm happy to see someone agrees with me now so it's good I waited. DinDraithou (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's good you waited. You should always attempt to resolve the issue on the talk page before looking for third parties. Your "edit war, then noticeboard policy" is wrongheaded. -Rrius (talk) 21:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that some editors are making this article do less than it should. This is an article about a term, what it means, and the situation surrounding it. It should have sections about the economic situation involved, which would pretty obviously include the policies economists and other eurozone countries say should be taken. -Rrius (talk) 21:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All of this can be done on the individual countries economic pages. Very few, and certainly no EU/ECB officials are suggesting a policy that applies to all of these countries so what's the point of collecting all these comments on this page? A country can leave PIIGS insomuch as a country can leave BRIC. The term will die out in a few years time. --Patrick (talk) 11:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This could not be properly handled at the country pages. Ideally, this should discuss the situations in those countries and how the failure of one could bring down the other, and the fall of these states could bring down the eurozone or even the world economy. What's more, a country cannot "leave" this grouping. It has to improve its economy. The fact that the term may fall out of use doesn't support your argument. If it will only ever be about a bloc of poor economies in this particular economic environment, then it makes all the more sense to discuss that economic environment and how they fit into it. -Rrius (talk) 23:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What you've just said Rrius confirms for me that this goes beyond original synthesis and into all sorts of things for you and maybe one or two others. Please read WP:Soapbox. You appear to be soapboxing. DinDraithou (talk) 01:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You must have no idea what any of those policies mean. This new soapbox allegation of yours is truly bizarre. Exactly what substantive position am I supposed to be advancing? Instead of throwing around policy names as though you know what they mean, why don't you advance a real argument? -Rrius (talk) 01:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with Rrius: some Irish-American Wikipedians seem to have taken offence at the allegedly “xenophobic” nature of the acronym, and therefore want to shorten the article and restrict its scope, or slice it into “individual” country-specific paragraph…..etc. or even worth, make it some kind of linguistics or semiotic orientated article where they delve on the acronym’s supposedly intolerant semantic roots, or the City of London traders being inherently anti-Catholic, … etc. …. I think that’s projecting too much onto a simple acronym used across Europe by traders and academics alike- many of whom are actually of Celtic ancestry! Rrius is right: it makes a lot of sense to discuss how this CATEGORY fits into the current EU economic circumstances- how it contributed to create it, and how in turn it’s influenced by it- hence the “Corrective Policies” paragraph without which that article would be meaningless Moorehaus (talk)
It just sounds like you're thinking of anything you can, Captain Straw Man. You've stuffed an awful lot of words in my mouth. DinDraithou (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I’m at loss for words to describe the clearly unconstructive (to use a polite word!) behaviour of DinDraithou: first he kept on vandalizing (“bye bye yet another time”) the paragraph on “Corrective Policies” without which the article would be meaningless...; and now he’s making up faux copyright issues to justify his erasing a pertinent picture- perfectly illustrative of the content of the article in general & of the paragraph in question. Moorehaus (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.158.109.191 (talk) 17:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately, the allegation that the section is off topic has not been supported. There is an obvious connection between the term and the debt crisis. The term is not used to discuss these countries culturally or demographically. It is an economic term referring to the weakness of the five. It is only natural that there would be a discussions related to the other article. -Rrius (talk) 21:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but the article should not become a place for grand visions. It's about a silly-sounding acronym, and the debate over whether the I should stand for Italy and/or Ireland, and who might or might not find the silly acronym offensive for whatever stupid reasons. No one has managed to articulate why it should be expanded beyond that. DinDraithou (talk) 22:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is where we disagree. It is about more than the word as a word. It is about a term used in economic circles, which naturally includes a discussion of the situation surrounding its use. You seem to be in a minority of one in your belief, so why don't you let it go? -Rrius (talk) 23:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Someone else started this section, you know? Patrick and I are saying essentially the same thing. All you've done so far is support the emotionally invested Moorehaus, who as far as I can tell is mostly wild about defending his "brilliant" research. DinDraithou (talk) 23:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Middle, and accurate, ground. Describe the grouping and their economic relationship as med. agricultural economies with weak govs known for large debt and tax corruption - then point to those articles dealing with current related events. There is a decided diff between the grouping of like objects and popular current events. Article should stick to term - and not be a coatrack for everything else. 99.142.1.101 (talk) 04:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Racist?

Well done; you hold Wikipedia clean of vandalism. --212.54.219.232 (talk) 06:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has been discussed, and consensus is against your view. This article is about the term "PIIGS", which only exists in economics. Another editor suggested that "PIGS" (note the difference), also had an older sense, and I offered to help construct an article based on that. In any event, the controversial nature of the term is noted in the lead, and it is unnecessary for Wikipedia to take the rather strong position that the term is racist (especially when there is no racial difference between those using the term and those referred to). -Rrius (talk) 06:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently the "consensus" will never change hah? This is how propaganda is instigated in wikipedia gentlemen. --Leladax (talk) 04:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah. Some random deucebag journalist used this term and some others repeated it, and then some random "wikipedians" who live somewhere in America decided that it's OK for the people of 5 entire nations to be referred to as "pigs". Oh, yeah that makes perfect sense because it's "consensus". Oh, and it's also "sourced". I wish I could meet the idiot who introduced voting in wikipedia as a means of establishing "consensus" and explain to him what those terms actually mean in the real world, outside quotes. Until then you can keep this article, it is a fine example of wikipedia's side as an amateur product of pop-culture and source of misinformation. Miskin (talk) 18:43, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BBC web page

I've added the UK and Romania. The UK is sourced by the BBC, so even it's press have accused it of being a PIIG. --86.29.139.55 (talk) 11:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article Improvement - BRIC is an example of excellent coverage of identical term

As title indicates, I think future editors would be well advised to generally emulate the BRIC article. It's quite well done.99.151.172.170 (talk) 22:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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