Comments on: Iceland: economy shrinks 8%, prices rise 11% and market down 97%

By: Hamster Cheese

Hamster Cheese — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:26:14 +0000

This country needs to be put into perspective…what’s it’s population? About 320,000 people? Man, that’s smaller than Madison, Wisconsin! Getting way too much press relative to its size me thinks.

By: klaos

klaos — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:58:42 +0000

hey guys, could iceland be an early example of what to expect in other over-leveraged economies?

Iceland is far more dependent on imports than most places, and their currency lost ~50+% of it’s value last year. Might be a faster/harsher version of the US, another importer w/a weakening currency.

By: Youri Carma

Youri Carma — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:15:03 +0000

Lose 72% in 18 months and make the cover of Barron’s… Is this a great country or what? It’s Miller Time, says Barron’s. Huh? http://tinyurl.com/yfelrbf

By: Youri Carma

Youri Carma — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:00:17 +0000

Where the housing boom – and the sidewalks – end http://bit.ly/npozM

By: Youri Carma

Youri Carma — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:43:55 +0000

Russia’s Economy May Shrink `Very Serious’ 7.5% This Year, Medvedev Says http://tinyurl.com/yfmq9kb

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:19:57 +0000

and they will fall harder.

i don’t want this to happen. my friends and their families….

By: Icelander

Icelander — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:21:14 +0000

@Patrick

Absolutely! I’m watching the UK and USA. They’re going the same way as Iceland, it just takes a little longer…

By: Icelander

Icelander — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:17:57 +0000

@stacy

Absolutely you should get Max over here to cover the scandal going on here. What you’ll find is corruption, corruption and a battle about the bits that are left. An example is Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his companies Baugur and Hagar. Even though they are bust, he is still in control! He and his family control 60% of the food & clothes market. He also owns a large newspaper and TV station. Well “technically”he owns it, it’s all leveraged to the roof. And there are more stories like that. It’s all completely corrupted. It’s Mini-USA

Oh, and then there is the IMF, pretty much doing the same to us as is happening in Latvia.

Finally, the loudest voices insist that our ONLY way out of the recession is to have more aluminium factories….yeah right!

By: kim jong il

kim jong il — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:03:38 +0000

green shoots in iceland.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:01:17 +0000

hey guys, could iceland be an early example of what to expect in other over-leveraged economies? and keeping in mind its relatively small size; the implications of this are just…well i don’t know what words can describe it…anyone?

By: eric blair

eric blair — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:43:56 +0000

Maybe its to run computers working through huge amounts of data – perhaps thats what you need to chunk through large amounts of data. Say maybe working on algorithms to run on computers, say “within the M25″?
Its just a thought. Its the sort of place you would find difficult to cut of the power off to i guess, no reliability on oil or coal etc.
Kind of “off grid”… and for some reason… “going cheap”

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:36:15 +0000

@Palantíri …When a normal company goes bust..

Fully agree … banks are predators and should be dis-empowered ASAP IMO.

An ex bank employee told me that when someone took a mortgage, they’d often say “there’s goes another fool that will have to sell us his house back cheap in a few years”.
That person was a nice old lady BTW … but just a small employee .. now retired !

By: Supergeek

Supergeek — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:35:00 +0000

@y’all
I liked people, power and money
I watched it with my wife
it wasn’t very funny
but it taught me about real life!!!

By: eric blair

eric blair — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:30:54 +0000

BBC says, “Iceland looks to serve the world”

I was watching a BBC programme – “Click” last night with half an eye open. When my ears pricked up to a guy called Gudmundur Gunnarsson saying “There are very sensitive financial services that cannot even go outside the M25 in London” and I thought of the high frequency trading, Stacy and Max have spoken of.
The programme was about servers being located to Iceland by big companies. Cause the geothermal energy helps cool and provide energy to run these server farms.
So Iceland is providing “Green” servers for companies and getting fast fiber optic connections to Europe and the U.S…. SO WHAT?
Well it becomes interesting when the film works its way to the bit about…

“…And, in an irony not lost on a country brought to its knees by finance, one early customer rumoured to have signed a deal to move servers here is – well who else – one of America’s biggest investment banks.”

Reading between the lines, when you move into an new office, dont you get the “phone line” connected first?

Text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8297237.stm
and the programme
IPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ncsxb/Click_10_10_2009/