Yes, I understand the nomenclature, but the fact that it is commonly used does not make it any more offensive. I have quite a few friends from those countries, often people who are hardworking, intelligent folks who have been worried about their economies for a long time. Now everybody in the rest of Europe calls them pigs.
I would recommend going into a bar in Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Athens or Dublin and finding some bloke having a drink. Tell him that him and all of his friends are PIIGS and see if he finds it offensive.

Are you going out of your way to be offended?

The idea isn't new. The mnemonic for the original 13 Euro countries was BAFFLING PIGS. I guess your "intelligent" friends were crying into their beer then too

If only France, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania and Spain would collectively have some sort of acronym-able financial problem ...

No, not me. I have no connection to those countries, but if you called me a rasist because I come from South Africa, I might be. I don't know.

What the hell if nobody finds it offensive, have fun.

Excluding Dublin why would anybody care this acronym sounds like a word in a foreign language?
I guess if you hunt around then you would find most acronyms have roughly equivalent words in some foreign language?

French example RAT RÃgie autonome des transports

And it's Switzerland not Swiss...

Switzerland will not join the Euro in the foreseeable future, basically because one of the required conditions to join is to keep the exchange rate stable inside a +-15% band for two years. And the exchange rate level which would be set now would be extremely harming for the Swiss economy, as residents would initially feel wealthier, but companies would lose all their competitiveness. Until the central bank can rein on the ever-escalating exchange rate, or the market calms down, this is an impossible topic to talk about. And even after that I guess it doesn't make much sense for such a strong and export-oriented economy like the Swiss to switch to the euro, as it can play the free-rider card for as long as the EU tolerates the situation.



Those millions of lazy southern bastards you insult with so much satisfaction, albeit unnecessarily, on average work more hours than northerners. The south might have bad politicians, but I don't think the other millions of citizens that populate those countries should deserve to be freely insulted with those terms.

Just a question. What do you define as the foreseeable future?

Well taking the long term view, what's the euro?

Would it sound better to describe the group as HIPEEs?

Hellas (Greece)
Italia (Italy)
Portugal
Eire (Ireland)
España (Spain)

Firstly there is the very small detail that Switzerland is not even a member of the European Union let alone the Eurozone and therefore one of those "conditions" as you put it cannot be important. Incidentally, one of the conditions of joining the euro is to keep the exchange rate in a 15pct band?????, kindly explain how you keep your country within the euro by keeping the currency which is presumably the Euro in its own movement band?
Im actually impressed.
Finally my thoughts about those Southerners were the fact that the whole Euro crisis was sparked by one nation, the Greeks, and their dissatisfaction at losing 14 months pay for 12 months work and losing the right to retire at 52 when the rest of the Eurozone are expected to work until the ripe old age of 65 and beyond and not get one penny more than the 12 months salary that they work for.
Therefore I dont consider that as an insult, I consider that as an accurate reflection of the resentment that millions of hard working europeans are now feeling about the free spending economies that have brought the eurozone to its knees.

Amusing but I don't think anybody got the point.

I really like the amount of finger pointing that constantly goes on in these conversations. It must make loads of folks feel really big to place the blame everywhere because looking for solutions is too difficult. Human nature, it is wonderful stuff. Makes me proud of my species!

Colin Sir. With the greatest of respect, I quote you on your very own disclaimer:-
I take no responsibility for these posts if you don't have your pinch of salt at hand.

Good spot, it does not say that I won't add peper occasionally. Counterpoints are valuable, and I do think people spend too much time trying to find somebody else to blame for their problems.
At the same time, I don't expect everbody else feels like this.

erm IronAngle, IRONANGLE ! anybody seen IronAngle?