I spent last weekend in the UK. Even though the GBP is at an all time high (220 vs. ISK when I was there), the UK is still much more competitive when it comes to retail and therefore it still makes sense looking for Christmas presents there. We were wandering around in a clothing-store on [...]

In the midst of all the economic chaos, we seem to have lost something. What on earth happened to Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland? Has he been on a “Bush-vacation”? Or didn’t he get the memo and is still abroad helping Hannes Smarason and Bjarni Armannsson win investment opportunities? Or is he deliberately keeping [...]

At least one Icelander is coming out on top of something. Arni Matthiesen, Finance Minister is # 1 in the Huffington Post’s vote for the World’s Worst Banker. He’s even got Alan Greenspan beat.

It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own. A month ago I wrote a post about the situation facing people I know. Above is a well known economic cliche attributed to Harry S. Truman. What would Truman make of what is happening in Iceland. Text in [...]

Economically speaking it would have made more sense to have borrowed money from the mafia than financial institutions in the past few years in Iceland. To pay back loans at 15-28% interest PLUS seeing the capital rise by 20% annually is something the mafia would consider a good business.

I’ve heard an interesting story of a group of friends who are going to pay one of their friends to “buy” all their homes. The guy is going to get himself bankrupt, but the others are going to escape. They will be indebted to their friend for life instead of the bank forever.

Say you found out that in the year running up to its worst financial crisis in history, a country’s Central Bank Governor had extremely important information which was critical to the financial survival of the country and its banks, effectively foreseeing the economic disaster. And then you found out that same Central Bank Governor had [...]

But the most despicable thing that has gone on in Iceland, and continues to go on, is the corruption and abuse of power. The saying “it’s not what you know but who you know” does not ring any truer than it does here in Iceland. The politicians, bankers and high profile businessmen are all good [...]

David Oddson says in an interview with a Danish newspaper that he intends to sit in his chair as Central Bank Governor until he is prepared to leave himself. If he is forced to leave then he will enter the political arena again. In the same interview he says that he repeatedly tried to warn [...]

This is a scenario faced by Icelandic employees these days. A select group of people were given the banks by the Icelandic government. They were under no restrictions of owning businesses in other genres so they invested heavily, with loans from their own banks in all sorts of industries. When the going got tough they [...]