Had we not agreed to collectively stick our heads in the sand and wait this thing out? But here we go again… On the ratings agencies: To listen to European and US figureheads pour scorn over the credit ratings agencies is quite surreal. The ratings agencies´position in global finance is no coincidence. They are in [...]

For the next couple of weeks Icelanders can head down to the tax office and check out what their neighbours and co-workers are rendering unto Caesar for the year 2010. The tax returns might not make as exciting read as in the heady days of 2004-2008 but they still give the public valuable information about [...]

Political scientist Jack Snyder claims that individuals and groups can gain significant power if they can convince others of their ideas, as those become the norms and ideas which shape our reality.  Iceland’s president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson’s official visit to the Vatican in March 2011 raised some interesting questions about agents of powerful positions, be [...]

If a whole election would be ruled illegal by the supreme court in any civilized nation, the minister responsible for the election would surely resign. In the case of the Icelandic constitutional assembly elections, that would be the minister of interior. But try to tell that one to Ogmundur Jonasson. After all, the call for [...]

Still scratching your head over the power plays surrounding the constitutional assembly? Well scratch away as the Employers’ Association under the leadership of the Independence Party’s Vilhjalmur Egilsson has threatened that it will not participate in pending talks on wage reform with the unions and employers associations unless the government reneges on its intentions to [...]

Skafti Hardarson will inherit Iceland. For those who are not fluent in Icelandic, Skafti is the Icelandic version of Glenn Beck, albeit with a much smaller following, a blog site instead of a TV show and where he lacks in props he more than makes up for in derisory and outraged vocabulary. Skafti thinks the [...]

Remember Indefence? The group which persuaded the president of Iceland not to sign the IceSave agreement last year. Which many believe has saved Icelandic taxpayers some serious amounts with the agreement of better terms a year later, while others maintain that it has delayed the reconstruction of Iceland by keeping away foreign direct investment because [...]

The most interesting twelve months in modern Icelandic history is the one between October 2007-October 2008. Who was warned? Interestingly very little has been written about this period. Except that former ministry director Baldur Gudlaugsson is on trial for selling his Landsbanki shares after a meeting with Alistair Darling in the summer of 2008. Recent [...]

I am writing my masters’ thesis. If you can point me towards important sources, articles, research or contacts then it would be greatly appreciated. It is on the three big ratings agencies and their assessment of the Icelandic banks in the period from 2002 – 2008. 1. How did the leading credit ratings agencies rate the [...]

Someone told me that one of the most interesting things about Stefan Zweig’s story, The World Of Yesterday is how easy it was for people to move away from bad rulers before the days of border patrols and passports. The issue of surrogate mothers has been hotly debated in Iceland recently. A toddler is stuck [...]