MEGAN MCARDLE: Irish Example Doesn’t Support the Case Against Fiscal Austerity. “Whatever the case for stimulus in the US, Ireland is just a terrible example to use in its favor. In fact, I am hard-pressed to understand why stimulus proponents insist on returning to it. Constantly talking about a country which has substantial borrowing constraints seems to reinforce the conservative complaint that stimulus proponents think we live in a fairy tale simple economic model where adequate capital to fund stimulus borrowing can simply be assumed. Ireland’s example could serve at least as well as a warning about the dangers of acquiring an unsustainable debt load, rather than an encouragement to hog-wild deficit spending.”