You should know that in the lovely leftist country of Iceland, some are more equal than others. Johanna Sigurdardottir, Steingrimur J. Sigfusson and Gylfi Magnusson are so determined not to treat all debtors equally that currently you can only get real solutions at the banks if you know someone high up. If you don’t then [...]

Today we celebrate independence day. For what it is worth. The feeling towards nationalism has always been like most other emotions in Iceland, sort of quietly muted, yet boiling underneath the surface. Iceland celebrates Jon Sigurdsson’s birthday as a national day. Fittingly for nepotistic Iceland, the man who married his cousin became their leader in [...]

One out of every six househoulds must use more than half its income to pay off its loans. Seven percent should use 90% of its income to service their debt or roughly 5,000 homes. In addition twelwe thousand households are being heavily squeezed. This was revealed at the Central Bank’s conference on the debt of [...]

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings. – Dorothy Thompson In the past few months I’ve talked to two persons who are facing a dilemma that they did not expect to face a year ago. They both have detailed [...]

OK, maybe just a Freudian slip or a speech that was shabbily put together. But Eyjan.is reports that Johanna Sigurdardottir’s speech on the first day of the new parliament has caught attention for the words, “We cannot let the interests of few give way to the interests of many”.  But rarely has a prime minister [...]

Iceland is doing what would have been unthinkable only a year ago: applying to join the European Union. The prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, announced this week she would present a bill to parliament authorising the start of membership talks with Brussels. The move was widely expected, as she believes EU membership is the only way [...]

  “Yes, I was one of those who took a currency loan”, says the forty year old father of two. “Twenty million that are now sixty. I am not asking that my loans be remitted. But when I went to the bank to look for solutions, they said no because I am one payment behind. [...]

  With opinion polls showing views on European Union membership about equally divided among the 320,000 people in this remote land on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Ms. Sigurdardottir has linked her political future to gaining entry to the 27-nation union. She said Saturday at a news conference that applying for entry was an [...]