Aside from the Celtic Tiger's collapse and the loss of economic sovereignty when Ireland was bailed out by the IMF and the European Central Bank, Fianna Fáil lost the faith of an electorate who perceived the party as too close to a nexus of bankers, speculators, builders and other corporate interests.
There is talk, too, of property speculators who want to build hotels and shops on prime real estate.
One of Kenny's first lines was the current economic mess his government was now dealing with was "not your fault", the implication being that the real fault lay with the builders and speculators, and their chums in the Irish banks who loaned them billions to construct new homes and offices that no one really needed.
Thai Prime Ministers with questionable human rights records and speculators who borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to buy clubs and then use the team's earning power to service massive debts are equally welcome in world sport's most extreme freemarket model.
But they are players, and not just players but speculators.
Fine Gael and Labour are starting to realise they have a fight on their hands as they face accusations that they are more interested in penalising mortgage-holders than the bankers and speculators whose greed laid waste to the property market.
The Anglo Irish Bank was the preferred lending institution to major property speculators and business figures like Quinn.
Of course, the main villains of the piece remain the banks and the speculators, and the political leaders who allowed greed to thrive and the economy to overheat.
So the rand is a convenient currency in which speculators can take a position on emerging markets more generally.
Moreover, if rising prices are being driven by speculators you should see a rise in oil inventories exactly the opposite of what has happened.Central banks may have affected oil indirectly, by raising global growth prospects, which in turn buoy expectations for oil demand.
With the current-account surplus narrowing and capital flowing out, the market is pointing to at least mild depreciation.The central bank has also vowed to make the exchange rate more volatile, to wrong-foot speculators and force companies to do a better job of hedging their exposure to different currencies.
