Stylized Facts

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

BHO44, Managing Director, USA

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

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"Jealousy and begrudgery are still alive and well in Ireland, and whoever eradicates them should be prime minister for life," he says as he tucks into a heaping plate of gravy-drenched turkey and mashed potatoes in the restaurant of one of the two hotels he owns -- and is hoping to raze. "It's part of the Irish psyche and it is the result of 800 years of being controlled by other people, of watching everything the master or landlord is doing."

Crime, gangland disputes and a sense of anomie flourished as Moyross and other similar projects evolved as cocoons of poverty and hopelessness.

Property developer Sean Dunne with his wife, Gayle Killilea, in Dublin

BUSINESS / WORLD BUSINESS
The Irish Economy's Rise Was Steep, and the Fall Was Fast
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Published: January 4, 2009
The Irish developer Sean Dunne, who became a symbol of the country's boom, faces a foundering economy.

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