If your happiness correlates inversely with your neighbors’ misery then Iceland is a great place to be right now. The endless wait for answers continues.When is the government going to form? We don’t know. How much does Iceland really owe and how much are we going to have to pay and for how long? We [...]

Jon Lund, the head of the Danish Internet Advertising Bureau, and I had dinner in Norway last week and he told me the chilling story of the crazy free newspaper war in Denmark that almost killed everyone involved. I thought it was an important cautionary tale of Free gone wrong, and I encouraged him to [...]

By Paul Nathan  A dear friend – Justin – who lives in Virginia came for his 3rd visit to Iceland.  We took the opportunity to travel, and spent many hours talking about life, the fragility of our planet, and inevitably discussed our respective economies. He wasn’t so amazed by the perilous situation in Iceland, so [...]

It’s alright everyone, David Lynch is here.  The Mulholland Drive/Twin Peaks/Blue Velvet director has graced the economic disaster area of Iceland with his presence and he believes he has the solution.  Icelanders should meditate, in a certain way and this will release positive energy into the universe that will help the country.  Individuals who want [...]

I recently returned from a week in Iceland – a week in which I met with politicians and former prime ministers, financial officials, university professors and students, film makers, TV hosts and “just plain people.” The terms “left” and “right” did not arise in a single conversation. The focus was on Iceland’s pro-creditor practice of [...]

They are looking for an apartment to share. Stefan, Larus and Andri are guys in their early thirties and late twenties and two are unemployed. Stefan lost his job when one of the banks collapsed and most of the workers in his department were cut. “It’s over. You have two hours to pack your stuff [...]

“The current situation of Iceland is worse than any recession that any nation has had to endure since the Great Depression.” The consultants at Oliver Wyman who have been looking into the assets of the failed Icelandic banks make no bones about it. Morgunbladid has published extracts from their memo to the Icelandic government from [...]

Russian style privatisation and rapid deregulation lead to exponential growth of the financial sector. In less than a decade, Iceland went from a resource-based economy, dependant on fisheries and geo-thermal energy, to a financial giant. We were all taken by surprise: where did the money come from? The answer came in October. We were living [...]

Some ate their ballots, one woman bit hers and one voter decided to occupy his booth for an hour to prevent others from voting.  But the quirckiest story of the election when more people than ever (3,2%) left their ballots blank in protest over the economic and political situation belongs to the 26 year old [...]

Let’s look at what Elias Petursson says over at Silfur Egils while we wait around for the Social Democrats and Left Greens to sit down and talk through which bottom to place in which seat.  Around 10 companies go out of business each day -         The word is that 75% of businesses are already bankrupt [...]