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The Icelanders have gone

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Omar al Hashim View Drop Down
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Icelanders have gone
    Posted: 08-Mar-2009 at 00:50
Stumbled across this article about Icelands economy, but I'd be interested in other peoples thoughts as to its accuracy.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904?currentPage=1
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edgewaters View Drop Down
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Mar-2009 at 04:14

What an interesting read.

I hope someone shows up to tell us how accurate it is!

What was the business about the elf-free certification Alcoa had to get???

This is very odd:

http://www.icelandtouristboard.com/elf.html

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  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 08:31
Can't say anything about the Icelandic folkcharacter he got hung up on, but as far as the economy goes the article sums it up well. A classic bubble, but with worse than usual consequences to the common man since the population that has to pay for the monumental madness caused by a handful of people is so tiny.

edit: and related, Iceland's last large investment bank, Straumur-Burdaras, just collapsed.

Originally posted by edgewaters

What was the business about the elf-free certification Alcoa had to get???

This is very odd:

http://www.icelandtouristboard.com/elf.html


Tourist attractor? We have a lake monster which, until recently when some bores in the local goverment had nothing better to do, was protected by law from hunting.



Edited by Styrbiorn - 09-Mar-2009 at 09:43
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edgewaters View Drop Down
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 15:51
Originally posted by Styrbiorn


Tourist attractor? We have a lake monster which, until recently when some bores in the local goverment had nothing better to do, was protected by law from hunting.

Yes, but did you have a lake monster university which graduates lake monster inspectors?

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  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 16:17
Well, we have professors in genus "science".
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  Quote Jams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 16:38
" for the country of Iceland, elves are no laughing matter. Over 10 percent of the population of 283,000 believes in them, including Icelandic rocker Bjork"
 
Of course she does, I mean, isn't she one of them?
 
I wonder if that really is true though. The Alcoa thing, I mean?


Edited by Jams - 09-Mar-2009 at 16:48
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 18:24

The 10 percent figure is the low end of the estimate. That's the fervent believers. Apparently only 7 percent actually disbelieve in elves. The rest are fence-sitters.

Note this as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/international/europe/13elves.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/elvs25.shtml



Edited by edgewaters - 09-Mar-2009 at 18:28
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  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 20:00
Ah, well, a majority of the Western world believe in a guy in a dress who walked on water and revived the dead.  I feel we are diverging though.
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  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2009 at 20:37

True.

One thing I'm really curious about is the constant reference to the youthfulness of the major players in this fiasco. How did that happen? It seems very unusual ... perhaps not in New York or something, but in Reykjavik? Where did these young uber-capitalists come from?

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Omar al Hashim View Drop Down
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Mar-2009 at 05:38
The fishing industry apparently. I love the idea that the head of their central bank was a poet.
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  Quote ulrich von hutten Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Mar-2009 at 06:20
The situation is as disastrous as pictured. The hungover is big and the doctor will not be in sight in the next future.
 
The kiss of the new economy was venomed and for he next years the Icelanders will have to pay for their affair.
 
A reason, not the only one indeed, for us to go back next month.
 


Edited by ulrich von hutten - 14-Mar-2009 at 14:09

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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Mar-2009 at 13:08
Iceland is only the beginning
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