I really liked the post on Barry Ritholtz’s blog The Big Picture , so hopefully he doesn’t mind that I republish it

BRIC vs PIGS
Posted by Barry Ritholtz on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 | 09:15 AM

I was at a lunch recently with about 10 people. One of the participants was an analyst from Portugal — smart guy, delightful accent.

The table was discussing the BRIC countries — what a tiresome acronym THAT has become — and our Portuguese pal mentioned the PIGS countries.

PIGS? What the heck is a PIGS?

It turns out that PIGS stands for Portugal, Italy, Greece & Spain — P.I.G.S.

Why so crude an acronym? They are all in, or on the verge of tumbling into, a recession. Their significance is that they are the soft white underbelly of Europe. While not as economically important as Germany or England or even France, they are still a substantial chunk of nations, consumption and output for Europe. Our dashing Portuguese analyst expects their slowdown to spread to the rest of Europe.

PIGS: Now you know.

UPDATE: July 9, 2008 11:09AM

I am aware of the dispute between whether Italy or Ireland is part of the PIGS. I am going to defer to the Economist magazine, which notes:

One danger is that fractures within the euro area will distract the ECB from staying on top of inflation. A particular worry is what could be called the PIGS—Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, Europe’s negative version of the fast-growing BRICs. The fear is that these countries may be in a hole they cannot easily climb out of and that the ECB will be pressed into running a looser monetary policy to save them.

 Click here for an map of europe.