The fourth cod war

We protest!

Ok...

The situation is getting both surreal and chaotic at the same time. People are protesting every Saturday and the number of protestants grows by hundreds as the weeks pass. But it's not really clear to me what is being protested against. A bit like a case of the windmills. Protesting against everything at the same time.
The leader of the national bank, corruption, dysfunctional politicians, dysfunctional government, high interests, a currency that seems to be worth about as much as monopoly money...

And the government is silent. There are no concrete answers about anything. Nothing is clear. There has been no real drawing of the worst case scenario and there is no real picture of what would be the best thing for us to do in this situation; How much money we need to dig us out of those problems and how this is going to directly affect the common Joe? No answers.

Solid businesses are going down because they don't get cash to secure the stash and even though the town is full of tourists willing to spend money, shop owners can not get new goods into their shops... everything is frozen. Meanwhile a few hundred loose their jobs every week and unemployment is predicted to rise to 10% in the next year. This means that about 18.000 people will be unemployed out of the 180.000 who are on the job market.

Personally I don't really know what to make of all this and I am not sure about what to do about it either. This feels like a waiting period, everything is still in the air, nothing is clear, a whirlwind of snowflakes in a ball. We have to wait for them to fall down in order to be able to make the next move, or even get an idea of what the next move will be.

I picture a Scandinavian Murmansk during the next ten years... but truly hope for something better. And meanwhile I wonder where the exit is.

ps.

Tonight I met a guy who has just arrived from Nepal. He told me that everyone in Nepal were aware of the bad situation we have up here... Now what does THAT mean? :)

A clan called Icelanders

I don't refer to my fellow countrymen as a nation. I call us a clan. How can you call a group of 300.000 individuals a "nation"?

We are all so liked with each other that when you meet a stranger it normally doesn't take more than ten minutes to find someone that you are either related to or both of you know.

And being so small, we are all interlinked and that calls for certain problems in government and most other places of authority. Because the fact is that as humans we are all primarily concerned with our interests and -concerns. And the more the people in government are connected with individuals concerned about their interests, the more twisted the decisions they make can become. Because sometimes they are not thinking of the rest of the clan but only their own closest members.

This is why it has been suggested that a group of independent professionals, who do not belong to this family, this clan... come over here to sort out some of our problems. To clean out the closets and clear the way for something new.

The IMF might be the first step. But there is more to follow. I just think we need some outside counseling, love.

I suppose it's in a way similar to other countries but still different. The clan is then made up by Ivy league students and the sons and daughters of "somebodys". Probably harder to deal with. Maybe the smallness of the nation allows us to clear things up this way? The problem being a solution at the same time.

Tighten the belt

IMF was here today. We got the stash. 2 billion $. The next 6 months will be really hard they said. A lot of people will loose jobs, homes, etc. And the inflation will reach 20%. Lovely...

And we are supposed to reinvent the lifestyle of 1975. Eat our own food. Bake bread. No money to import. What can we export? Elves? Fish? Music?

Looks like we need to get creative... shouldn't be too hard.

For today

Read this and have a look at this. Just remember to scroll down a bit on the "We are not terrorists" page...

Peace,
m

Good news

This kind of idiocracy will soon be extinct...



...at least for half a century I hope ;)

Thrown out

Two icelandic women were thrown out of a petshop in Glasgow today "because they were Icelandic". The shop owner said something like "we don't want you here" as if those women were responsible for the Icesave issue.

They had nothing to do with banks. They just wanted to buy some stuff for their pets.

I wonder what it's like being German. Generations of Germans have had to suffer for the insanity that took place in WW2, even though they weren't even born until 40 years later.

When the shit goes down

Today it has been reported that the rest of our financial institutions will fall down tomorrow. 

This is what the currency looks like. We could just as well be trading with rocks. It's dead and the government seems to be on acid or in complete denial. What can we do. The financial minister is educated as a vet...Dr. Donothing and the one in charge of the national bank is a lawyer and an x radio jockey. 

Can it get any worse?

Do you still have a job?

Good morning. Do you still have a job?

This is the casual question today. The one everyone is asking.

When No-vember kicks in a lot of us are going to answer No, I don't. Can u get me one?

Insane loans

I went to the bank to organize the payments of my car today.

A year ago I paid 16.000 every month. Now it´s 35.000. The car costs more now than when I "bought" it three years ago. The bank is going to let me pay 19.000 of the car for the next four months but after that... it´s 35.000 or even more... or less, depending on what happens with the currency.

I am not the only one having this experience. If an earthquake happens, everyone is going to be aware of it. The most uncomfortable part of this is the fact that at the end of this month, a lot of people are going to be loosing their jobs to. Great! Higher loans and less money, at the same time. Just what I was hoping for.

It feels so strange that all these people here are having to go through this trouble because of a failed government and a few individuals with an unhealthy taste for risk taking.

So we have been thinking of a revolution. But how does a revolution take place in the year of 2008?

I don't think it's going to be "crazy people running in the streets with torches and forks"... a modern revolution must be more quiet. And happen differently... but I am not sure how, not yet.

How clean is your house?

The situation here in Iceland is really strange. We have such a big mess in front of us and there are so many things that have to be taken care of. It actually reminds me of that TV program "How clean is your house!?" 

But the problem is that the people who are supposed to clean up the mess up are the ones who let it happen in the first place. The government failed. The man in charge of the National Bank is the one responsible for the words that made Gordon Brown able to have his Falklands moment and apparently that same man beliefs that the IMF is not the best choice we have in this fucked up situation. He also still seems to belief in our monopoly money that is of no value anywhere in the world, he does not like the idea of Iceland entering EU and most of all, he does not like the idea of anybody but himself being in power. Which I think is a big part of this problem. And he has circled himself with a group of altruistic faithful friends who do as he say's and say as he does. 

 This man and those faithful "freemasonic" guys who went to college with him have gotten us into a giant mess and now they are supposed to clean it out for us. Now how clever is that? If you hire someone to fix your car and when you get it back it´s a total mess, would you bring your car back to the same garage? Eh, no. 

 So we need to get rid of these guys and bring in a new team. A new team of individuals who have not known each other since they were 16, people with no strings attached, people who's only goal is to clean up this mess with no strings attached. Hopefully professionals who were not born in this country. People who can look above "left and right" and take appropriate actions in order to fix the problem. People who are not up to their necks in personal involvement. 

 I don´t know how or when this is going to happen but if it doesn't happen, there will be a revolution. That is for sure. At least we have nothing to loose. They are talking about 50% unemployment, 75% inflation and black market valuta. How can you loose something if the situation get's that dark? 

 Two things will happen if something really dramatic doesn't take place in the next two months:

1. Revolution
2. Exodus 

 Those who stay will do all the can to create a functioning society, no matter what it takes, and those who don't will leave. There are no other options.

This is Iceland today

We have created this blog in order to try to infrom the world about what is happening in Iceland today.

The people who write on this blog are all different. Some are journalists, some are babysitters, all are just ordinary people writing about life in this country from day to day.

Make sure to check this site out regularly. More to come...