LIVING THE LOL IN CYPRUS

It's always good to be able to showcase the work of a successful friend. These days however the work of Alex Apostolides over at http://www.econcyma.blogspot.com/ is proving particularly useful. Alex specialises in the economic history of his native Cyprus, but also Malta, which is now making a thoroughly savoury name for itself by opposing Libyan sanctions.

Reading his latest post I realised I haven't followed the Cypriot economy very well in the past two years, lulled to complacency by my prejudices. They have been as follows:

• because Cyprus is a much smaller country, it is easier to avoid enormous amounts of administrative waste and corruption there than it is in Greece.
  
  
• because Cyprus has had British influences to those institutions which Greece borrowed from the French or Germans, it should be a more flexible economy than Greece in many ways and have a more flexible civil administration.
  
  
• the looming presence of a major national threat has focused the minds of Cypriots a little bit more on the greater good and made consensus a much more acceptable practice in their country than it is in Greece.

I have other prejudices of course that are not so positive. But the ones above allowed me to ignore economic news coming out of Cyprus in the conviction that our funny-sounding cousins would muddle through.

It turns out I am wrong. Over to you Alex!