What would hurt Dubai’s reputation would be unequal treatment between domestic (or UAE, GCC, Middle-Eastern or Islamic) creditors and other creditors from the West or from the non-Islamic East.  If Islamic debt were to be interpreted by the Dubai authorities as debt instruments that give preferential treatment – non-contractual seniority – to Islamic creditors, Dubai’s [...]

Lets see what happens before predicting the apocalypse again but here is the story off the Guardian. “The crisis in Dubai has brought up speculation about how many more skeletons might be left in the cupboard,” said Richard McGuire, a strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in London. Graham Turner, of consultancy GFC Economics, said: [...]

Ohio Democrat representative Marcy Kaptur on the Wall Street Bailout

When our grandchildren ask us what we spent our money on then this graph should help. From Information is Beautiful

Reagan was wrong. State spending is all that has stopped America’s slump becoming catastrophic Paul Krugman in the Guardian

Iris Stefansdottir is a promising photographer who completed her studies from a photography school in Milan earlier this year. Her graduation exhibition was called “Crisis” and revolved around photos she took in Iceland, depicting half-completed neighborhoods and empty streets in Hafnarfjordur and Gardabaer. These are normally not the neighborhoods tourists get to see and because [...]

I am trying to find Eva Joly´s open letter which she published in Morgunbladid this weekend in English somewhere. It is a brilliant letter even though the assistant of Johanna Sigurdardottir asked her to stick to things that were her speciality instead on his Facebook page. One of the suggestions Joly makes is the interest [...]

It would be wise to keep a comprehensive list of the most memorable quotes from the economic crash in Iceland. 1. “You ain’t seen nothing yet” - Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, president of Iceland ending a speech praising the Icelandic economic miracle in London 2005. 2. “God bless Iceland” - Geir Haarde closing off his adress [...]

Asgeir Jonsson, former head of Kaupthing’s Analytical Departments has written a book called Why Iceland? on the economic disaster. Why, what, how are words that often came to mind when I thought about Asgeir and his department at Kaupthing. One of the absurdities of the economic boom was all the head analyzers of the bank’s [...]

From the Welsh band Catatonia’s 1999 hit Dead From The Waist Down. Striking a chord for the businessmen, politicians and times we are facing today. The sun is shining We should be making hay But were dead from the waist down Like in californ-i-a Victory is empty There are lessons in defeat But were dead [...]