We should realize that Iceland is a small city really, not a country....300K people or so... But it is a warning tale...
Im planning an Iceland trip this summer. Does anyone know, can i pay in EURs over there nowadays, or is it still strictly ISK?
No country could ever enforce using only their currency after what happened. Probably a huge black market for pounds and Euro.
This makes sense only if the loans were in a foreign currency, like CHF or EUR, for the purpsose of getting lower interest rate. Actually, people who got cars with loans in local currency at a fixedd interest rate should be better of.
The guy who is Obama's economic advisor was also part of a group who provided banking "advice" to Iceland. We all know how that worked out...Iceland was a test case of how to destory a nice, middle class, christian country. For bonus points, try and guess this guy's background and what country he's from...
Fascinating read, thanks for posting it. I wonder if people in Iceland physically bump into each other as mentioned in the article - seems strange.
I guess it was pretty much for the insurance money at any rate (no pun intended). A great Vanity Fair article by Michael Lewis. Wall Street on the Tundra Icelandâs de facto bankruptcyâits currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insuranceâresulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In ReykjavÃk, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown. by Michael Lewis April 2009 Just after October 6, 2008, when Iceland effectively went bust, I spoke to a man at the International Monetary Fund who had been flown in to ReykjavÃk to determine if money might responsibly be lent to such a spectacularly bankrupt nation. Heâd never been to Iceland, knew nothing about the place, and said he needed a map to find it. He has spent his life dealing with famously distressed countries, usually in Africa, perpetually in one kind of financial trouble or another. Iceland was entirely new to his experience: a nation of extremely well-to-do (No. 1 in the United Nationsâ 2008 Human Development Index), well-educated, historically rational human beings who had organized themselves to commit one of the single greatest acts of madness in financial history. âYou have to understand,â he told me, âIceland is no longer a country. It is a hedge fund.â ... Read the whole article here: http://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetailThread.aspx?p=0&m=26308983&l=0&r=0&s=MPV&t=list
Cod is a versatile fish that can be prepared in mny ways so that you never get tired of eating it (pretty lucky really), on the other hand, cooking in aluminiuum cookware and eating off aluminium plates every day could be risky............................ They are going to have to catch a lot of cod to pay down their debts.
when a country goes bankrupt like this, do they basically not ever pay back most of their debt? just like when people or companies go bankrupt?
I think in the case of Iceland, they will never pay back their debts. The country is simply too small and the debts too large. However, in most cases, the country in question simply monetizes the debt over time after a period of default.