Iceland - how exactly did they manage to fook up?

[Ming the Merciless]

Here's a fascinating article. The bottom line Icelandic model is:

I have a cat, you have a dog. I'll buy your dog for $1bn, you buy my cat for $1bn. Now we are not pet owners, we are merchant bankers.

We didn't quite do anything as silly, although there was an element of cats and dogs about the development land market and we weren't savaged by having our own free floating currency, which was a conscious, well made decision, as any of us who had a mortgage in 1992 will remember (I had just taken out a mortgage to buy our house, and the interest rate went to 17.95% and the repayments amounted to my salary minus IR£5).

Despite all the doom and gloom, 85% or so (hopefully) of people will remain employed and our situation is recoverable in the medium term, unlike Iceland's. Furthermore, we are not nearly as fubar'd as Austria, or even Sweden, based on the amount of write-offs from Eastern Europe making their way to Austrian and Swedish banks.

So despite all the pain coming, we will survive. I think.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904

[bloke]

Fascinating stuff alright.

On an aside note. I know it's smacks a little of car-crash voyeurism, but is Iceland now the ultimate five-star-hotel-for-peanuts holiday destination?? :)

Remember that Top Gear cabrio special - that chrysler thing, the TT and the 350z - filmed in Iceland? (I think anyway). The place looked stunning, and the roads looked amazing.. :)

[Evin]

Heard something, not sure how true it is

Iceland population=about twice that of tallaght.... And they owe 58bn????

I realise the hypocrisy of posting in this forum :]

[Ming the Merciless]

300,000 people. How many in Tallaght?

[Evin]

300,000 people. How many in Tallaght?

I was gonna say 150,000 but Wiki says 103,000 :hat:

Is the debt figure correct?

[DaveV]

That is a really interesting article, amazing how it all happened, almost unbelievable

[cannyboy]

In the age old tradition of blaming the guy with bad engrish, a new scapegoat is sought....

Interesting article which demonstrates how money can make people a bit, mad.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=1

[DMZ]

That Vanity Fair article is a bit funny. The female interest angle is ever so slightly forced. Sort of "I went to Iceland to figure out why it went bust, oh and there's a couple sitting at a table in the restaurant where the man isn't talking to the woman, typical".

Is it just me or isn't Iceland a bit like Wexford? Without the banks, obviously. I could see eob slagging off Russians for being a bunch of girls who can't deal with difficult weather.

[flyingalexf68]

Great article. (maybe the women point is due to it being Vanity Fair! Ming, what have you been reading?) I knew nothing about Iceland until it went bang, and even after it went bang I didn't know why, so that made for very interesting reading. I wonder if any of these f-ing bankers will do time in prison. Not just in Iceland, but all over the world. What they were doing was not only stupid but wrong, and they knew it was wrong but did it anyway.