Icelandic Government collapse

[whistlelock]

You may have missed this one in amidst the headlines about tightening auto emissions, economic downturns, and falling house prices.

Iceland's government collapsed today.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/26/iceland.government/

Iceland's ruling coalition resigned Monday, three months after the collapse of the country's currency, stock market and several major banks, and following months of public protests,

Is it the sign of things to come or something less dire?

[Tirjasdyn]

This is really really bad...:(

[MattW]

Viking raids increase after Iceland economic woes...

[Don]

Is it the sign of things to come or something less dire?
Government spending over 43% of GDP, high indebtedness of private-sector borrowers, rigid labor regulations. Sound familiar?

[darkprincealain]

Government spending over 43% of GDP, high indebtedness of private-sector borrowers, rigid labor regulations. Sound familiar?

Sounds way too familiar for comfort. Have I been living in Iceland for the past 27 years?

Seriously though, this struck me: Senior government officials from the two parties that make up Iceland's coalition government -- the prime minister's Independence Party and the Social Democrats party -- had met Sunday to discuss the government's future but nothing was resolved, a spokesman for the prime minister said.

Well, um, duh. There are no easy answers that can be relied upon on a Sunday to fix something that has been going on for much, much longer. Partisan politics probably didn't help.

[Plot Device]

You may have missed this one in amidst the headlines about tightening auto emissions, economic downturns, and falling house prices.

Iceland's government collapsed today.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/26/iceland.government/



Is it the sign of things to come or something less dire?

Hey, everyone, let it be officially known:

I am NOT the one who started this thread.

So ... no gloomer-doomer accusations are allowed to come my way (unless y'all want to accuse me of being contagious).

That is all.

--Plot Device


(PS: Repent, for the end is nigh.)

[blacbird]

Government spending over 43% of GDP, high indebtedness of private-sector borrowers, rigid labor regulations. Sound familiar?

The bank thing, though, was the real trigger. As I understand it, Iceland had become the Bahamas of Europe, the place where wild west banking practices made "investment" there highly attractive for people elsewhere. And despite the Icelandic regulation on labor and other things, they seem to have been utterly indifferent to scrutiny of their financial institutions. The collapse of their house of cards, which was as truly a Ponzi scheme as Bernie Madoff's was, triggered the necessity for an international bailout from other European countries. I guess it hasn't worked very well.

caw

[whistlelock]

And from CNN's article it does seem the banking industry was the cemment block that broke the viking camel's back. So, it would seem that less regulation was part of the problem.

[Contemplative]

This is tremendously sad. Iceland was doing so well a little while back: praised by the UN, listed as the most developed country in the world, excelent Gini coefficient -- and now economists will blame the Social Democrats.

I want to do more research on this before I say anything else.

[Medievalist]

This is heart breaking; Iceland has been a constant democratic state, with some nobole ideals, since it was settled.

My friends there are particularly humiliated that they, as a nation, are essentially being allowed to abandon debts.

I fear we are heading the same way, in what may be completely irrational fear on my part, but we seem to be in a Ponzi scheme ourselves.

[veinglory]

Government spending over 43% of GDP, high indebtedness of private-sector borrowers, rigid labor regulations. Sound familiar?

How about becoming a specialist in banking, not tightly regulating how those banks behave other than that they make short term profits, and not pursuing sustainability? I think those free market/world market elements are more relevant.