Flying PIIGS

I follow the stock market, in a minor way. The Lady of the Villa allows me some money to ‘invest’. In doing so, I came across this story, which struck me as an example of political correctness gone a bit mad.  Here’s the background: Greece and Portugal have been grouped in an acronym, PIIGS, which stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece & Spain.

Apparently, one PC correct soul at Barclay’s Capital took offense to the use of PIIGS to refer to those Mediterranean countries and banned the use internally. Bloomberg the finance brokers, wrote a piece on this with the awesome headline, ‘At Barclay’s Capital, PiiGS No Longer Fly.’ Unfortunately, another PC correct soul at Bloomberg must have taken offense and updated the online headline in the piece it to this:

Swine Acronym Ordered Out of Barclay’s Reports (Bloomberg, Feb. 5, 2010)

The securities unit of London-based Barclays Plc told analysts yesterday not to use the acronym for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain in notes to clients, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. 

The PIIGS nickname has grown increasingly popular in the last month as investors dumped assets in the euro zone’s smaller economies on concern the countries will struggle to control budget deficits.