The good news today are that Lilja Mosesdottir, Left Green MP and chairman of the Parliament’s Committee on Social and Insurance affairs has said that debt foregiveness of some kind for Icelandic households is practically unavoidable. Lilja cites the help capital owners recieved in the form of payments into money market funds and the slashing [...]

In the wake of the last election a friend and I seriously debated whether we should run as the “empty party”, based on the premise that the election was coming too soon for any meaningful change to happen within the ranks of Althingi and therefore we would enter in silent protest if we’d get a [...]

Two Icelandic MP’s have endured an “email scandal” in the past year. First Bjarni Harðarson of the Progressives tried to gather support against fellow MP Valgerdur Sverrisdottir and Margret Tryggvadottir of the Citizen’s Movement sent a “concerned” email regarding fellow MP Thrainn Bertelsson’s health. Both mistkenly used the cc. option and the word quickly spread. [...]

Has anyone thought of this yet? In 2004, Kaupthing brought the first mortgages by a commercial bank to the Icelandic market. Glitnir and Landsbanki soon followed, as did the Savings&Loans and some smaller financial institutions. In the first couple of weeks after Kaupthing’s announcement, Glitnir and Landsbankinn were practically in shock. A customer calling his [...]

When he was voted in a highly organised coop, the chairman of the Progressive party, he no longer spoke on behalf of the group. He was still seen with them and plays a very important part there. Or should we say that the group plays an important part in his politics.  The Indefence group not [...]

A conversation this weekend offered an insight into the life Iceland has to offer its citizens. A woman in her forties said she and her husband were considering leaving the country. “We’ve raised four kids, and it’s often been an almighty struggle”, she said. “We’ve always been working from dusk to dawn. Now finally when [...]

Before the financial crisis hit Iceland hard in October 2008, the country’s booming economy was a magnet for migrant workers. Many Eastern Europeans came to the small island in the North Atlantic to work on construction projects. Most of them have left the country since Iceland’s economic collapse, and many Icelanders have decided to follow [...]

I just love the fact that what I have been calling the solvency committee for Landsbankinn is in fact called “winding up board”. It is somehow so much more fitting as they have now hired back as consultants the two men that the Financial Supervisory Authority let go from the committee two weeks ago because [...]

When Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, Independence Party MP started his job as CEO at Askar Capital in 2006 he was granted a loan for 300 million ISK to purchase shares in the bank. The loan was put into a company, owned 100% by Tryggvi and the company will now go bankrupt when the loan is due [...]

August 11, 2009 Reykjavik, Iceland To the attention of Mr. Franek Rozwadowski, IMF Resident Representative to Iceland Mr. Rozwadowski I write to you on behalf of a small group of friends who have bought their first home in the last five years. Through an accident of birth, it so happened that all of us were [...]