I heard a good story this weekend. It was about my personal finances.

The story told of how I’d been gambling around with money in the good times and lost it all in the economic collapse. Therefore I am supposed to be bitter and therefore I am supposed to be keeping this site going, going on talk-shows and writing opinions in the newspapers.

This story shows how deeply flawed Icelanders perception of their own society and the economy is.

I did not “lose” any cash in October. I only had a couple of hundred thousand ISK worth of Kaupthing stock which I’d acquired through a bonus scheme as an employee. I sold them above the purchasing price, without reaping a massive profit. That was the whole “gamble” I’d taken during the bubble if you look at things in a convenient way.

The real gamble in my life has been betting on Iceland as a viable place to live and prosper.

I graduated from an American university seven years ago. I was open to living elsewhere but somehow ended up staying in Iceland. Things were on the up you know, and I owed money for one year in a US university ( I got scholarships for the other three) and then assumed half the debts of a small business I owned with a friend when we decided to close it.

So I had debt, but not a massive one and with no regrets and I set out to repay them, which was not going to be an insurmountable task with the wages I was earning. Which by the way were not of such caliber as you’ve heard about bankers in Iceland but definitely more than my mother and aunts were making, working government jobs that are beneficial to society, nursing and teaching. But I was naive as I was just out of school, and an American one at that where the economic theories I’d learned had no basis in Icelandic reality.

When my friends in the US pay their loans they actually go down each month. This did not happen as quickly with my loans. Through price-indexation and bad financial management by the government, inflation has never been kept in check in Iceland since I graduated from university. This means that I have paid an arm and a leg for the privilege of being Icelandic and having to borrow money. Ascending interest rates and growing capital makes it really hard to pay your debts in full because every month it eats more out of your purchasing power and ability to save for a rainy day.

Meanwhile, inflation has caused the price of everything to rise and rise. Food = expensive, car = expensive, home = expensive, everything = expensive in Iceland to the point where it has almost become a source of national pride to maintain a world record on the prices of everything.

And by purchasing a home, my girlfriend and I might have signed a contract with the devil. When we bought our place in 2006, everybody around us told us this was a great deal, from family to friends to the bank. Since then we have seen the loans go through the roof and the sky come falling down on property prices.

Meanwhile, a select group of friends have sucked the society dry of valuables and they’ve done it through the government. We could have a brilliant model society in Iceland but instead we have become slaves to the emperors and their friends. Our social benefits are increasingly shrinking as their offshore bank accounts have been bulging.

I don’t understand why more Icelanders don’t take to the street and protest, or complain out loud like I have. We are all big, huge, bloody losers every day at the gas-pump and the grocery store.  We lose each month as we give unto Caesar much more than he deserves. We assign ourselves to defeat every time we pay another price-indexed home loan bill.

Iceland is now a society that benefits corrupt businesses and politicians. It rewards those who do not pay their debts above those who do. It is nontransparent and increasingly unfair. I am mad because I have chosen to pay my debts, and done so while those who don’t are in the clear as long as they have paid enough money to the political parties.

I am disappointed because I expected more, because I believed that we were enlightened people, forward thinking, fair and just. Through enough brainwashing through the media and school I temporarily bought into the idea that there might be a tiny possibility of us being so much smarter than everyone else.

Boy was I wrong. But I am not afraid to admit it.

I want this blog to do two things. I want the world to know the real story behind Icelandic businesses and politics, not the PR version that usually accompanies descriptions of deliriously happy drunks next to a photo from the Blue Lagoon. And I want this site to become an archive for people everywhere to learn from in the future.Therefore I try to pull together as much of interesting articles written in English about the situation.

I am not bitter. I am mad as hell. And I don’t know why people living with a bunch of robbers occupying their home every day aren’t.

Fear, Stockholm syndrome? I am past that point and therefore I raise my voice, not because I personally lost some money.

Related posts:

1. An Economic Horror Story: The Frightened Generation Of Iceland
2. Discussion On Household Debt Held Hostage By Progressive Party
3. Why I Don’t Want To Pay For IceSave
4. Happiness Is Your Neighbor Being Worse Off
5. And To Wrap It All Up: The Story Of Storolfur