Laura Slatteryperuses the week in business

THE NUMBERS

€200 billion

- The size of a "timely, temporary and targeted" fiscal stimulus plan unveiled by the European Commission in which the Irish economy cannot afford to take part.

€47 million

- Size of Tourism Ireland's marketing budget for 2009, as it bids to attract visitors to Ireland despite the global downturn, unfavourable exchange rates and €10 departure tax.

3 million

- Number of jobs at risk if the bailout-seeking "big three" carmakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - were to go bankrupt

£385 million

- Sum lent by Bank of Ireland division Burdale, and General Motors offshoot GMAC, to failed retailer Woolworths, which has now gone into administration.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The Government yesterday announced new laws to ban beggars. What are they going to do about delinquent bankers?"

- Labour Party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton wants "the two Brians" to go after the big guns for once.

GOOD WEEK

Timothy Geithner

The president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank has been appointed as the next US treasury secretary. Geithner, the architect of the sale of Bear Stearns and a key player in both the bailout of AIG and the decision to let Lehmans go bankrupt, has studied Chinese and Japanese and has an MA in international relations and East Asian studies - which will come in handy as the US gradually cedes economic power to the East.

IBM

International Business Machines, as pretty much no one calls IBM any more, is setting up a new "collaboratory" (a laboratory with shared usage) in Dublin. Some 40 people will be employed to pursue exascale stream computing research, which will include developing applications that can perform real-time analysis of company valuations, using data from investor profiles, live market trading and RSS news feeds. So there will be no place to hide . . .

BAD WEEK

Ireland, the UK, Iceland, Spain, Hungary and Turkey

These are the six sickest economies, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But Irish people who are envious of Britain's VAT-cutting approach and fear the worst for 2009 might spare a thought for Icelandic consumers, to whom the worst appears to have already happened. As the value of the krona has plummeted, food prices in Iceland have rocketed 30 per cent and interest rates are at 18 per cent.

German-US relations

German chancellor Angela Merkel (right) has accused the US of making "cheap money" a central tool of their economic management - a tactic that could prompt "the exact same crisis" to happen again in five years' time, she said. Meanwhile, Wendelin Wiedeking, the chief executive of German carmaker Porsche, has attacked his US rivals for driving the industry to the brink of ruin through unsustainable discounts and subsidised leasing rates.