'Ireland was just one big pyramid scheme'

Telegraph
"A sticking plaster over the open wound in the eurozone", was the judgment from Ireland's finance workers as their Government revealed a €15bn (£12.7bn) package of cuts. .....But while the austerity package may have held few unknowns for Dublin's financiers, one question is still puzzling them: Where did all the money go?
"We don't know where the money went," added the trader, half in jest, but half in earnest. "We've been debating it all morning. Cars, flat-screen TVs, Bulgarian properties? Everyone round here used to have a Mercedes. The whole country was a pyramid scheme."