World Out Of Whack: Iceland, You Won’t Believe It
The developed world is going to hell and probably deserves it. Today, I’m going to show you what should have been done both during and post the GFC. That it wasn’t, and now almost certainly won’t, is a problem for us all but that’s a story for another day.
Today, we look to Iceland and marvel at what they managed to accomplish both leading into the GFC and then coming out of it, and then we scratch our heads at the latest news just out from their central bank.
On with it then…
It was over a decade ago now when I very nearly took a flight to Reykjavik but at the last minute opted instead to go to Copenhagen, which I regret since I’m told it’s like Scotland on steroids (sounds like a blast). What clinched the decision in the end was that a scotch was about 3 times the price in Reykjavik, and since I was heading out for a wild boys week this was important in our considerations, though I’m told that in the land of fire and ice the women are indeed unbelievable.
Its history is that of an arctic backwater reliant on fishing fishing, energy, aluminium smelting, and tourism. A place with hardy living conditions and hardier people.
Between the late 90’s and 2008 they, however, went through what can only be described as a stratospheric rise from this backwater specialising in fishing to one which specialised in global finance.
Using the Irish financial model as a blueprint, Iceland decided to revamp its economy repositioning itself in the international community as a low-tax jurisdiction for foreign finance and investment.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
