Don't explode Colman.  I'm just noting that the real estate bubble is not just an American affair.  Spanish and Irish houing prices have been rising rapidly as well, let alone the massive Chinese real estate bubble.

Fixed rate mortgages are pretty much unknown in Ireland. Almost all mortgages are based on the ECB base rate plus a margin and are fixed for at most a few years. It has always been so.

EMI (European Monetary Integration) has led to relatively low inflation as individual nations have lost their ability to inflate their debt away (which was fairly common for Italy and Spain.)

And EU interest rates for home purchases are at slightly more than half US rates (which are currently floating around 6% for a 30 year fixed mortgage.)  I also imagine that the insidous phenomenon of house flippers, people who purchase homes as an investment renovate the house, and sell it within 1-2 months and make 15-20% profit off of each sale, are absent in Ireland.  That is to say that I imagine that there's not much in the way of short term speculative investing going on.

Ireland and Spain have rapidly growing economies. Ireland's GNP has been growing at damn near 10%  per annum for a decade, we've has gone from high to low unemployment and from mass emigration to mass immigration. There are a few demand factors at work here. Spain is in a similar, if not as extreme, situation. Both have young populations. The structure of the economy is somewhat different to that of the US.

I know that Irish growth has been extremely rapid in the last 15 years, celtic tiger and all, but is that sustainable in a world where there are millions of equally educated Indians willing to take jobs for a 5th or less of the wages of Irish workers?  An excellent educational system is the secret of Ireland's success, but is that enough.  And is 300% housing growth over a 5 year period sustainable when GDP growth per capita has been but a 1/10th of that?

I'd write more, but I have to go.  Take it easy, and try to avoid expoding.  All I'm saying is that this is a global problem.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg