financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
BBC NEWS | Europe | Iceland protest ends in clashes
Take note, class. Nota bene.
Watch Ireland carefully.
Take note, class. Nota bene.
Watch Ireland carefully.
I saw a news report on CBC that it was popular in Iceland for people to borrow on their home equity to go on vacations.
shouldn't they all be dead?
How do you mean?
the canary...its death is the signal.
bad joke, i guess
Well, the country is on life support and the question is for how long til it collapses.
That was common in the US as well. The bigger problem there is that they took out loans for their cars and homes in foreign currencies, and the krona then depreciated against those currencies by a lot. So people owe a lot more on their cars and houses than they are worth in krona. Repos are increasing. There was an interesting quote that Iceland will become like Cuba - currently there are 2008 model SUVs being driven around, and in 30 years the same SUVs will be driving around.
YEA I KNOW IT WAS A BAD JOKE LET IT GO OK?!?!
eat a hot dog.
I think the generation affected by this recession will learn to keep their debt to a minimum as a habit from now on.
They have no choice - there is no credit left, and not as many exports to maintain the lifestyle of the last 10 or so years. I read some stat that one third of the population is thinking of leaving the country. This brain drain will further sink the economy.
Icelanders might be inclined to leave their island as the situation worsens. The question is, where to?
Iceland: frozen assets
Six months ago, Iceland was one of the world’s richest nations. Now it’s bankrupt. AA Gill visits the first victim of the economic ice age
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In the summer of 1783, there was a volcanic eruption in the southeast of Iceland that vomited lava into the Skafta river, which boiled and ran with fire like a mythological Nordic curse. The volcanic gases were toxic and poisoned animals in their byres. Seething clouds of opaque ash plumed into the sky, blotting the sun. Everything that photosynthesised withered and died. There was a famine that killed a fifth of the population — a fifth of the people who had survived the smallpox epidemic that had previously seen off a quarter of all Icelanders.
The act that tipped the last Icelandic bank off the edge of the cliff was delivered by Gordon Brown, who froze Icelandic assets in the UK using our new, gleaming anti-terrorist legislation. The Icelanders mind that — they’re hurt by that. You see, they always imagined they were one of us, not one of them. But Gordon needed to do something cheap to look competent, so he beat up a smaller kid. Not just a bit of a slap, but a vicious kicking. Showing off to impress the girls. He would never have started it if the banks had been German or French, or even from Liechtenstein.
The Icelanders mind about the terrorist thing. They don’t even have an army. They barely have a jail: it’s more of a drop-in centre. The police drive you home if you’re too drunk. This is the most liberal, reasonable, hard-working, decent, moral, amusing and well-educated people on the Continent; a nation who are temperamentally the furthest away from terrorism. Remember that about Brown — the man who said he wanted to prevent the export of terrorism. Remember it when he puts on his Save the World, Mr International Harmony hat. He put an ally into intensive care for the sake of a headline and three points in a weekend poll. Perhaps he didn’t notice. Perhaps he was looking through his glass eye.
Iceland has grasped this weakness, this greed, this business with money, and turned its back to take an unsentimental look at itself.
They will be all right. This is the nation that made the first democratic parliament — the Althing — that fought the Royal Navy to make the first sustainable fishery in the northern hemisphere, produced three Miss Worlds and one Nobel literature laureate — then came second at handball. You are measured by how squarely you stand against bad luck. Not how you squander good luck.
very much soThe article is probably thick on the romanticism,
The article is probably thick on the romanticism, but it's alright. I've kind of had a soft spot for Iceland for the last few years myself, and, one of these days, I intend to learn their language too. And, now with the new job, more pay, extra vacation time, and devalued króna, maybe I can actually travel there in the not-so-distant future.