Iceland has a higher percentage immigrants than Europe on average - more than all the other Nordics except Sweden. The second to fourth (it varies) most common immigrant nationality in Iceland is filipino. Despite high church registration, Iceland consistently polls as one of the least religious countries in the world, with one recent poll finding that not a single young person in the hundred-something that they polled backed a creationist worldview over that of the Big Bang. Iceland has been far more welcoming to immigrants during the immigrant crisis than mainland Europe.
Also a myth. The three largest banks went into receivership, but they weren't government backed; they were backed by a private fund, with the British and Dutch governments as the secondary insurers (they sued... it went to the EFTA court... the EFTA court affirmed this). But Iceland pumped tons of money into the banking system in general, raising our national debt from about 25% of GDP to around 100%. We got a stake in the banks that were in receivership due to the money we pumped in (akin to the US stakes in the auto industry during their bailout), but we sold them off at firesale prices as soon as possible to avoid any perception that there was intent to run them. The rush to sell them off lost us huge amounts of money, yet apparently people still think we nationalized them.
This whole conflict revolves around our prime minister actually being a bank creditor and giving tons of money to bank creditors, so I'm not sure how you're trying to spin this as an attempt to punish anti-banking people. You do realize that our current governing coalition is the same parties that were governing back 2007-2008, right?
Trivia on the subject. The Icelandic name for the Pirate Party is "Píratapartýið" But that's not Icelandic for "Pirate Party" - pirate is "sjóræningur" and political party is "flokkur". "Pírati" is an Icelandification of "Pirate" as in the international Pirate Party movement (they wanted to differentiate themselves from literal pirates), while "partý" is a loanword for the type of party where you go out and have fun (not the political kind).
Pickled fish isn't widely eaten here. A commonly eaten thing you're not used to is harðfiskur, which is basically fish jerky. But most food here is pretty standard western fare...probably the most commonly eaten food here is pizza.
Now, if you want weird stuff, we've got no shortage of options! Want rotten ammonia-reeking poisonous shark? You can have it with some fermented whale and sheep head if you'd like....
Would you even bother to check out our electoral history, you would realize that the parties governing Iceland right now are the same ones that ran the country into the ground in 2008. Yep, they got reelected!
. No railing. No signs. Not even a small rope. Just a nice grassy pleasant stroll until you just walk off the edge and plunge to your death.
Natural selection.
No, seriously, why should we cordon off everything that could hurt you? We'd be cordoning off the whole country....
That said, if tourists keep dying at Reynisfjara we might have to do something. Apparently the sign at the parking lot warning of rogue waves isn't enough to stop people from... well, getting swept out into rough, cold, shark-infested waters by rogue waves.
First off, his name is not "Gunnlaugsson". That's not a last name, it's a patronymic. It just means that his father's name is Gunnlaugur. The proper way to refer to him is Sigmundur, Sigmundur Davíð, or if you want to be "familiar", just Simmi.
Secondly, Simmi was absolutely not an "enemy of the bankster elite". That's the whole point of this incident - he actually is a part owner of the failed banks, despite having campaigned on fighting against them.
Right, because the US wants to get rid of the conservatives in Iceland and install the Pirates? Is that what you think is going on? The Pirates who want to give Snowden citizenship?
First off, this government's popularity has gone totally down the drain because of their continued efforts to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of the nation (selling off bank assets in no-bid auctions at a tiny fraction of their value to family members of government officials, fighting to get Iceland expanded fishing quotas and then just handing them off to the fishing barons, etc), their continuous attempts to stifle press freedom, and countless other things. The prime minister's, before this incident, was in polls the choice of only 12% of the electorate. This is just the latest outrage in a long string of them.
Now, for the actual issue. Simmi and his wealthy wife, back before the financial crash, set up an offshore shell company to secretly buy shares in the three large Icelandic banks that turned out, one year later, to go catastrophically belly-up. Now the two of them (50-50 owners in the company) were creditors, scrambling with the other creditors over the right to the remains of the banks. They were what we refer to as "vultures". But this was in secret.
Then Simmi ran for office as the head of Framsóknarflokkurinn (Progress Party), a right-populist party (some might call it the "Idiot Party", as they run every year on some variant of "We're going to give you TONS OF MONEY, and nobody's going to have to pay for it, not EVERS!"). His big thing was that he was part of a group fighting against the wicked vultures trying to pick Iceland dry. When in actuality, of course, he was a vulture.
We haven't gotten to the problem part yet.
Because then he was elected. And the regulations (beyond general conflict of interest) are that if you own more than a 25% stake in an investment company, you have to disclose it. He was prime minister for months before he did anything. And that "doing something" was not to disclose his secret holdings, but to sell them to his wife for $1 (which still didn't remove the conflict of interest).
Still not to the problem part.
Because as the head of the government, he then pursued policies to get 2B euro of money that otherwise would have gone to the state to instead go to the creditors. "The creditors" including his wife and other secret accounts owned by other members of the governing coalition.
Basically, he robbed the country to make up for his investment losses.
Furthermore, people, stop the whoop-di-doo about his resignation. Because he's just stepping back to running the party behind the scenes while one of his ministers is taking over. The governing coalition isn't leaving. Actually Simmi reportedly tried to break the coalition, but the president wouldn't let him. Now he says that the president is lying about that, that he never planned to break it.
Yes, there was a period of uncertainty when nobody knew what was going to happen. Not least of which, the Icelandic government.
That doesn't change anything that was written above.
To all of the people with these fantasyland views of Iceland as being some sort of anticaptalist paradise, you should know that Icelanders are making fun of you.
1) Iceland and Greece where basically on the same boat 6 years ago
There was essentially nothing in common between the economies of the two countries.
they were going bankrupt
Iceland was not going bankrupt 6 years ago.
The Icelandic banks were nationalized
The banks were not nationalized, any more than the US automakers were "nationalized". In fact, to make clear to the markets that they weren't nationalized the government sold off the stake they got at fire sale prices, losing us a ton of money.
hence markets considered their debt equivalent to government debt.
The markets have never considered the banks' debts to be government debts.
2) Iceland has stayed out of the EU
Iceland is in the EFTA and thus subject to most EU legislation either way.
and defaulted on its
The Icelandic government has NEVER DEFAULTED ON ANY DEBT. There is not a single court or ratings agency in the world who will tell you otherwise.
(state-owned banks')
They were not state-owned banks. They were private banks. With assets backed by a private fund. As fully confirmed by the EFTA court. You are asserting things that are in direct contradiction to the established legal facts of the situation.
We never had any fundamental economic or structural problems - just a cleptocratic government (reelected last term, hopefully about to get kicked out of office) and some massive private company failures. That said, the current government is doing their damndest to funnel as much of our economic output as they can into their and their friends' pockets. Trust me, almost nobody here thinks that things are "great". All of you foreigners who don't live here have no grounds to stand on when describing how "wonderful" the situation is here, with our crumbling healthcare system and cutbacks all across the welfare system to pay for policies to enrich the wealthy.
None of these facts depend on one's home address or country of residence
None of what you wrote is actually facts.
Get out of fantasyland and stop telling someone about what the facts arein a place where they live and you don't.
Hehe... yeah our jails aren't particularly tough by western standards... even at Lítla Hraun, our "maximum security" prison, occasionally prisoners just walk out because the gates were left open accidentally (and usually walk back in). People who've been convicted of crimes actually schedule when they plan to meet at prison to serve their jail term.
Oh thank you so much! Because I was so looking forward to being lectured about how AWESOME Framsóknarflokkurinn is from someone who's never lied here! Who gives a rat's arse that they've repeatedly stolen from the nation to enrich themselves, smuggled guns into the country, shot us down the rankings in terms of press freedom by numerous actions against the media, gutted government services to pay for policies to benefit the wealthy, and on and on. No, no, we're supposed to be thankful that they broke their campaign promise where they said that we'd get a vote on EU membership - instead breaking the law by bypassing parliament (who had the actual legal right to withdraw our membership) to withdraw it without giving the nation a vote - even though a popular vote would most likely have rejected EU membership anyway.
Yes, I'm supposed to be SO BLOODY THRILLED with them. Thank you very much, Person-Who-Does-Not-Live-Here!
As for your "#2", SIMMI HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. Quite to the contrary, Framsóknarflokkurinn and Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn were organizing the agreement with the British that ultimately got voted down. It was our president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who sent it to referrendum. But don't get too thrilled about King Ólafur, he's a penultimate politician; he was the best friend of the banksters when the economy was doing well, called them role models... but he sure knows how to sail a turning tide. Thankfully, he's going to be gone soon, too.
And FYI, we DID bow down to the IMF. Seriously, read what the IMF wrote about us. We took on an IMF package and fully implemented it. We're their new poster child. Contrary to popular belief, our government has always paid its debts. What we have not paid is non-government debts - which the EFTA court ruled were not owed. The British and Dutch actions in Icesave were ridiculous; it explicitly spelled out in the Icesave accounts, one link from the front page, that they were backed by a private fund not the government as the primary insurance, and that the secondary insurance was (as is proper under treaty) the British and Dutch governments, respectivevly. Their attempt to try to pass on their loan obligations to Iceland was just shameful (although certainly in line with their long history of exploiting us - hey Brits, ever plan to pay us back for all the cod you stole???).
Also FYI, Greece had government backed banks. And the issue was over whether or not to reject government owned debt, which nobody at all on any side disputed was government-owned. And they, unlike us, had a severe income problem as well; we had balanced budgets (before our economy fell off a cliff, at least), and a low amount of government debt (again, before we heavily indebted ourselves over the crisis trying to get the banks back on their feet - yes, we did pump large amounts of money into the banking industry, even though we let some go into receivership)
But no, please please, tell me more about my country and how we're supposed to love our corrupt gun-smuggling perpetually-lying media-crushing government!
Lol, you really think that this guy qualifies as a viking? A guy who once left in the middle of a parliamentary session while answering questions because he had a craving for chocolate cake?
It's Sigmundur Davið - that's an eth, not an o. And yes, people were already furious with the way he's been running our government, now it's boiling over. Hopefully we'll be getting rid of him soon enough....
1) I never claimed anything to the contrary. 2) It was the GP talking about eating diets with a "tremendous amount of salad", not me. 3) I'm a vegetarian. 4) Not only am I a vegetarian, but I'm a vegatarian whose pet peeve is people who think that vegetarian diets are predominantly salad.
Man does not require any specific caloric source, but he absolutely does requires calories. Ever checked out the caloric content of lettuce?
The reason things like lettuce are amenable to in-store growing is precisely because they have so few calories - they don't take as much energy to grow.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, Bernie is actually pretty popular here. (Yes, we do follow US politics :) ).
"Brot á höfundarrétti"
Lóan er komin?
Or in the case of Sigmundur Davíð, his hand on the cake ;) Delicious chocolate cake, with brazed pears and whipped cream.....mmmmmm.........
Iceland has a higher percentage immigrants than Europe on average - more than all the other Nordics except Sweden. The second to fourth (it varies) most common immigrant nationality in Iceland is filipino. Despite high church registration, Iceland consistently polls as one of the least religious countries in the world, with one recent poll finding that not a single young person in the hundred-something that they polled backed a creationist worldview over that of the Big Bang. Iceland has been far more welcoming to immigrants during the immigrant crisis than mainland Europe.
Also a myth. The three largest banks went into receivership, but they weren't government backed; they were backed by a private fund, with the British and Dutch governments as the secondary insurers (they sued... it went to the EFTA court... the EFTA court affirmed this). But Iceland pumped tons of money into the banking system in general, raising our national debt from about 25% of GDP to around 100%. We got a stake in the banks that were in receivership due to the money we pumped in (akin to the US stakes in the auto industry during their bailout), but we sold them off at firesale prices as soon as possible to avoid any perception that there was intent to run them. The rush to sell them off lost us huge amounts of money, yet apparently people still think we nationalized them.
This whole conflict revolves around our prime minister actually being a bank creditor and giving tons of money to bank creditors, so I'm not sure how you're trying to spin this as an attempt to punish anti-banking people. You do realize that our current governing coalition is the same parties that were governing back 2007-2008, right?
Trivia on the subject. The Icelandic name for the Pirate Party is "Píratapartýið" But that's not Icelandic for "Pirate Party" - pirate is "sjóræningur" and political party is "flokkur". "Pírati" is an Icelandification of "Pirate" as in the international Pirate Party movement (they wanted to differentiate themselves from literal pirates), while "partý" is a loanword for the type of party where you go out and have fun (not the political kind).
Pickled fish isn't widely eaten here. A commonly eaten thing you're not used to is harðfiskur, which is basically fish jerky. But most food here is pretty standard western fare...probably the most commonly eaten food here is pizza.
Now, if you want weird stuff, we've got no shortage of options! Want rotten ammonia-reeking poisonous shark? You can have it with some fermented whale and sheep head if you'd like....
You know, you can all stop this Iceland mythologizing any day now. You should realize that people here make fun of people like you.
Would you even bother to check out our electoral history, you would realize that the parties governing Iceland right now are the same ones that ran the country into the ground in 2008. Yep, they got reelected!
Natural selection.
No, seriously, why should we cordon off everything that could hurt you? We'd be cordoning off the whole country....
That said, if tourists keep dying at Reynisfjara we might have to do something. Apparently the sign at the parking lot warning of rogue waves isn't enough to stop people from... well, getting swept out into rough, cold, shark-infested waters by rogue waves.
First off, his name is not "Gunnlaugsson". That's not a last name, it's a patronymic. It just means that his father's name is Gunnlaugur. The proper way to refer to him is Sigmundur, Sigmundur Davíð, or if you want to be "familiar", just Simmi.
Secondly, Simmi was absolutely not an "enemy of the bankster elite". That's the whole point of this incident - he actually is a part owner of the failed banks, despite having campaigned on fighting against them.
Right, because the US wants to get rid of the conservatives in Iceland and install the Pirates? Is that what you think is going on? The Pirates who want to give Snowden citizenship?
That is not in the slightest the issue.
First off, this government's popularity has gone totally down the drain because of their continued efforts to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of the nation (selling off bank assets in no-bid auctions at a tiny fraction of their value to family members of government officials, fighting to get Iceland expanded fishing quotas and then just handing them off to the fishing barons, etc), their continuous attempts to stifle press freedom, and countless other things. The prime minister's, before this incident, was in polls the choice of only 12% of the electorate. This is just the latest outrage in a long string of them.
Now, for the actual issue. Simmi and his wealthy wife, back before the financial crash, set up an offshore shell company to secretly buy shares in the three large Icelandic banks that turned out, one year later, to go catastrophically belly-up. Now the two of them (50-50 owners in the company) were creditors, scrambling with the other creditors over the right to the remains of the banks. They were what we refer to as "vultures". But this was in secret.
Then Simmi ran for office as the head of Framsóknarflokkurinn (Progress Party), a right-populist party (some might call it the "Idiot Party", as they run every year on some variant of "We're going to give you TONS OF MONEY, and nobody's going to have to pay for it, not EVERS!"). His big thing was that he was part of a group fighting against the wicked vultures trying to pick Iceland dry. When in actuality, of course, he was a vulture.
We haven't gotten to the problem part yet.
Because then he was elected. And the regulations (beyond general conflict of interest) are that if you own more than a 25% stake in an investment company, you have to disclose it. He was prime minister for months before he did anything. And that "doing something" was not to disclose his secret holdings, but to sell them to his wife for $1 (which still didn't remove the conflict of interest).
Still not to the problem part.
Because as the head of the government, he then pursued policies to get 2B euro of money that otherwise would have gone to the state to instead go to the creditors. "The creditors" including his wife and other secret accounts owned by other members of the governing coalition.
Basically, he robbed the country to make up for his investment losses.
Furthermore, people, stop the whoop-di-doo about his resignation. Because he's just stepping back to running the party behind the scenes while one of his ministers is taking over. The governing coalition isn't leaving. Actually Simmi reportedly tried to break the coalition, but the president wouldn't let him. Now he says that the president is lying about that, that he never planned to break it.
Yes, there was a period of uncertainty when nobody knew what was going to happen. Not least of which, the Icelandic government.
That doesn't change anything that was written above.
To all of the people with these fantasyland views of Iceland as being some sort of anticaptalist paradise, you should know that Icelanders are making fun of you.
Really, no Americans?
Anyway, meanwhile in Iceland...
There was essentially nothing in common between the economies of the two countries.
Iceland was not going bankrupt 6 years ago.
The banks were not nationalized, any more than the US automakers were "nationalized". In fact, to make clear to the markets that they weren't nationalized the government sold off the stake they got at fire sale prices, losing us a ton of money.
The markets have never considered the banks' debts to be government debts.
Iceland is in the EFTA and thus subject to most EU legislation either way.
The Icelandic government has NEVER DEFAULTED ON ANY DEBT. There is not a single court or ratings agency in the world who will tell you otherwise.
They were not state-owned banks. They were private banks. With assets backed by a private fund. As fully confirmed by the EFTA court. You are asserting things that are in direct contradiction to the established legal facts of the situation.
Hehe... yeah our jails aren't particularly tough by western standards... even at Lítla Hraun, our "maximum security" prison, occasionally prisoners just walk out because the gates were left open accidentally (and usually walk back in). People who've been convicted of crimes actually schedule when they plan to meet at prison to serve their jail term.
Oh thank you so much! Because I was so looking forward to being lectured about how AWESOME Framsóknarflokkurinn is from someone who's never lied here! Who gives a rat's arse that they've repeatedly stolen from the nation to enrich themselves, smuggled guns into the country, shot us down the rankings in terms of press freedom by numerous actions against the media, gutted government services to pay for policies to benefit the wealthy, and on and on. No, no, we're supposed to be thankful that they broke their campaign promise where they said that we'd get a vote on EU membership - instead breaking the law by bypassing parliament (who had the actual legal right to withdraw our membership) to withdraw it without giving the nation a vote - even though a popular vote would most likely have rejected EU membership anyway.
Yes, I'm supposed to be SO BLOODY THRILLED with them. Thank you very much, Person-Who-Does-Not-Live-Here!
As for your "#2", SIMMI HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. Quite to the contrary, Framsóknarflokkurinn and Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn were organizing the agreement with the British that ultimately got voted down. It was our president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who sent it to referrendum. But don't get too thrilled about King Ólafur, he's a penultimate politician; he was the best friend of the banksters when the economy was doing well, called them role models... but he sure knows how to sail a turning tide. Thankfully, he's going to be gone soon, too.
And FYI, we DID bow down to the IMF. Seriously, read what the IMF wrote about us. We took on an IMF package and fully implemented it. We're their new poster child. Contrary to popular belief, our government has always paid its debts. What we have not paid is non-government debts - which the EFTA court ruled were not owed. The British and Dutch actions in Icesave were ridiculous; it explicitly spelled out in the Icesave accounts, one link from the front page, that they were backed by a private fund not the government as the primary insurance, and that the secondary insurance was (as is proper under treaty) the British and Dutch governments, respectivevly. Their attempt to try to pass on their loan obligations to Iceland was just shameful (although certainly in line with their long history of exploiting us - hey Brits, ever plan to pay us back for all the cod you stole???).
Also FYI, Greece had government backed banks. And the issue was over whether or not to reject government owned debt, which nobody at all on any side disputed was government-owned. And they, unlike us, had a severe income problem as well; we had balanced budgets (before our economy fell off a cliff, at least), and a low amount of government debt (again, before we heavily indebted ourselves over the crisis trying to get the banks back on their feet - yes, we did pump large amounts of money into the banking industry, even though we let some go into receivership)
But no, please please, tell me more about my country and how we're supposed to love our corrupt gun-smuggling perpetually-lying media-crushing government!
A percentage of Icelanders, yes. Is there a point you're trying to make? Are you on the lookout for an Icelandic boyfriend or something?
That said, if we do need an executioner, I think we've got the guy for the job...
Lol, you really think that this guy qualifies as a viking? A guy who once left in the middle of a parliamentary session while answering questions because he had a craving for chocolate cake?
It's Sigmundur Davið - that's an eth, not an o. And yes, people were already furious with the way he's been running our government, now it's boiling over. Hopefully we'll be getting rid of him soon enough....
What on Earth are you talking about?
1) I never claimed anything to the contrary.
2) It was the GP talking about eating diets with a "tremendous amount of salad", not me.
3) I'm a vegetarian.
4) Not only am I a vegetarian, but I'm a vegatarian whose pet peeve is people who think that vegetarian diets are predominantly salad.
Living up to the stereotype, I see ;)
Man does not require any specific caloric source, but he absolutely does requires calories. Ever checked out the caloric content of lettuce?
The reason things like lettuce are amenable to in-store growing is precisely because they have so few calories - they don't take as much energy to grow.