There used to be an oft-repeated mantra in the business circles in Iceland. “Imagine if Steingrimur J. Sigfusson were Financial Minister? Iceland would go bankrupt!” Cue sneering laughter. Today might be the day when an elected purely leftist government takes over in Iceland. But it is too late for them to bankrupt anything. The right-wingers [...]

If your happiness correlates inversely with your neighbors’ misery then Iceland is a great place to be right now. The endless wait for answers continues.When is the government going to form? We don’t know. How much does Iceland really owe and how much are we going to have to pay and for how long? We [...]

  A storm is brewing in Iceland. Homeowners have waited since October for words from the governments of Geir Haarde and then Johanna Sigurdardottir on how the state is going to tackle their problems.  They are still waiting and they are getting angrier every day.  The thing is that pretty much all home loans in [...]

From the Independence Party convention So why did one Icelander in five think that the Independence Party was the right party to get the country out of the economic mess it is in?  Akin to giving the drunkest person at a party the keys to your car to drive you home, it may sound ridiculous. [...]

Iceland has an alcoholic psyche. The shared Icelandic alcoholism presents itself in co-dependence, denial and massive self-delusion. The self-delusion lead us to think that we had it all figured out, that we could drink more than everyone before us in history without suffering the hangovers. Co-dependence tied us strongly together in masking the problems, shushing [...]

They should have suspected that the possibility might occur that they would win the required majority of votes in last weekend’s election.  So what are we waiting for?  Five days later and there is still no announcement of an agreement between the Social Democrats and the Left Greens. What is going on? They keep repeating [...]

a) The election is held to formally authorize the digging of shit b) No one still knows how much shit there is to dig because no one has still managed to stick their head out of the pile to look.  c) It appears that old shit-dispensers are out of fashion. The Progressive Party and the [...]

There are still plenty of people who think that the adoption of the Euro is something Icelanders have a choice in.  But that would imply that there are still reasonable alternatives out there. Talks of the USD are unfavorable in the context of Icelandic trade vs. the trade it has with the European Union and [...]

When arguing against the EU, the political parties scornfully cite Latvia as an example. That the country which is in the EU is facing a similar crisis to the one in Iceland, despite being a member. An interesting point, using the countries differences to make a point.  More interesting to me after listening to the [...]

I am getting tired of talking about the Independence Party but they seem intent on hogging the headlines with one misguided step after another. Now Bjarni Benediktsson is plastered across bus-stops and full-page ads promising voters that Iceland could adopt the Euro through the IMF without entering the EU. This without putting forth any evidence [...]