The World's Best Countries: In a new rankings survey, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden take the top 3 positions. The US is ranked 11th and the UK is in 14th place with Ireland in 17th position. In a category of ten, on leaders and economic management, Taoiseach Brian Cowen is termed a 'fiscal taskmaster.'  

Last week, The Washington Post Co. sold Newsweek magazine last week for $1 - - not a print copy but the whole shebang!

Newsweek journalist, William Underhill, commented: "They've pushed through austerity packages drastic enough to win the admiration of the international community, raised taxes, and slashed some public salaries by more than 10 percent. But the Irish aren't showing much gratitude--Cowen's ratings have plunged to a mere 18 percent, and his Fianna Fail party can expect a drubbing in the 2012 national elections. Still, there's some hope that his government's unpopular measures will be rewarded in the long run: surveys suggest that Irish consumer confidence is on the rise again, and the economy notched up modest growth in the first quarter of 2010."

During the Celtic Tiger period many bought into the fairytale yarn overseas and in recent times we have the finance minister who snored through the crazy years of the boom, now being hailed for his fiscal leadership.

Two years after the banking bust, Cowen is still hoping for something to turn up and while he has been involved in trying to douse the fire he helped start, there is no interest in reforming the failed pass-the-buck governance system.

It just goes to show how unreliable foreign journalism is and how viral an absolutely wrong view can transmute to an accepted fact.

Cowen is a weak leader who had no option but to reverse some of the bubblemania legacy.

The list of ten leaders includes Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UK prime minister David Cameron, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, China’s premier Wen Jiabao, Liberia’s first female president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the president of the Maldives islands Mohamed Nasheed, who has won attention for his climate change campaign.

Cameron is termed an ambitious newcomer who has shown political daring, while Sarkozy is described as "Loved Abroad, Hated at Home”.  Wen Jiabao is called "Man of the People."

The Newsweek strapline reads: "These 10 leaders managed to win respect."