Together with the great events of European Union enlargement and the progress being made in other areas, this should be a source of pride for Ireland. Speaking about Ireland’s EU Presidency, and noting that the outgoing President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, is also Irish, I cannot resist mentioning with pride my own Celtic roots as a native “Breton”!
The first series, the debt-service ratio, measures the required payments on mortgage and consumer debt as a share of after-tax personal income. The second series, the financial-obligations ratio, is a broader version of the debt-service ratio that includes required household payments on rent, auto leases, homeowners insurance, and property taxes. Both ratios rose during the 1990s, and both reached a peak in late 2001.