We can’t pin hopes on international recovery

I HAVE just returned from a conference in Boston run by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on prospects for the US economy. The conference was addressed by most of the luminaries in the world of US economics, including Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

Over the past couple of years most of us in this country have become totally obsessed with what is going on in the Irish economy, and taken our eye off the ball in relation to what is going on in the wider world.

Consequently, I found it really refreshing to get a view on the outside world, although the view I got was not one that would exactly have you running around in fits of unconfined joy.