• Drive: 2-minute video excerpt

  • TED Talk on Drive

  • Order the new book!

  • Get the other books

  • Get my free newsletter!

    Receive excerpts from my book, DRIVE, along with exclusive articles, videos and other sneak peeks.

  • Twitter

  • Categories

  • Acronym of the day: PIIGS

    Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that some bearish international investors have coined a new term for the countries that they believe are the weak links of the euro zone: PIIGS — which stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

    That follows on the heels of the oft-used term for the most important emerging markets — the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. And then there’s the less popular acronym for the dangerous, nuclear-armed states of Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. That group is called, uh, never mind.

    Get a Trackback link

    4 Comments

    1. muller on January 14, 2010

      ah ha, now I know

    2. Dr. Dorothy Everts on March 2, 2010

      Why isn’t Iceland one of the “I”s? — it almost went bankrupt last year…

    3. kafoe on March 14, 2010

      Iceland is not in the euro zone, it’s not even part of the EU (yet).

    4. Uwe on March 15, 2010

      How much did it cost to have a marketing company develop that phrase?

    Leave a comment

    Comment Policy: First time comments are moderated. Please be patient.