Attention all mortgage seekers. Baugur chief Jon Asgeir Johannesson borrowed $24 million from Landsbankinn to buy an apartment at Gramercy Park North in New York without any collateral. Stunned foreigners must scratch their head when they realize that the owners of each Icelandic bank, didn’t just borrow a whole hell of a lot of money [...]

This should be big news. Today’s Frettabladid reports the following: “Two young men, born in 1989 and 1990 who are suspected of massive financial fraud are being kept in isolation under arrest because of the seriousness of their case. This is revealed in the courts’ verdict at their hearing. The men are believed to have [...]

Every day brings a new queasy revelation in the country which the Germans now call Crisisland. Today I met someone who is leaving the country, relieved to get away from all the negativity that has infiltrated every thread of society. Another friend said he foresaw the future in the same way. Occasionally you will find [...]

When I was a student at a university in the US, the women’s soccer coach was fired from his job for pushing a player. This despite his record of leading the team to the final four in consecutive seasons. This was eight years ago and he still hasn’t been able to find another job as [...]

My sympathy is truly there for the Dutch and British savers who lost their money.  I would like them to get back as much as possible. But I do not want to pay that money myself. I do not want lower public service or higher taxes. And I don’t want to be walking down main [...]

Like I wrote last week, the Icelandic banks are working on their own solutions for their indebted customers. Even though the state has complete ownership over all of them, they still behave like they are competing, marketing campaigns et al. They would like to assume the forces of the markets are still the same but [...]

Is it a good idea for such a large stake in the bank to be controlled by individuals with no track record in banking? And what’s the background of these people who apparently earned their fortune in the beverages business in Russia? Indeed the validity of one of their first, key acquisitions in Russia – [...]

Deutsche Welle: Ms Joly, how would you compare this investigation with the Elf Aquitaine affair? Eva Joly: This is much huger, much much more important. This bankruptcy is much bigger than Enron, involving a lot of people, involving other banks, and really the investigation is huge. From Deutche-Welle

The lawyers advising the powers-that-be in Iceland surrendered their professional roles and instead served as shameless enablers. They told the villains what they wanted to hear, grabbed their share of the profits, and are now aggressively attacking those seeking to set things aright. From the Huffington Post

Iceland is a country of two nations. The wast majority that lives in and around the city of Reykjavik, which you might call the urbans and the tiny pockets of population that live in small towns around the coast, the rurals if you say so. The rural areas used to be larger and more important [...]