The pipe dreams of an Exxon-BP merger. Great, an even bigger conglomerate to look forward to.
The young, educated, affluent, and tech-savvy Chinese are, forgetting how to write Chinese.
Facts can potentially make misinformation stronger. So when what we think we know is actually wrong, there’s no hope in correcting that misconception no matter how much facts get thrown in our faces.
Inequality seems to attack our health above more material differences. But if economic growth merely reinforces inequality, there’s not much hope there is it?
Are universities responsible in serving economic objectives?
Belly buttons, race, centre of gravity, hidden height, and success in sport. It’s all related!
Thirty percent of medical practitioners in the UK are non-UK trained. Thus when patients die at the hands of a foreign-trained doctor, the question of language competency comes to the forefront.
Another Middle Eastern country modernizing under the radar.
Not to say looking dowdy and boring is the way to female empowerment, but busting out a glamour calendar might not be the most effective method of celebrating Czech female MP’s political clout.
There’s no corner of the world where China hasn’t made significant investments in, Africa, Latin America, corners of Europe where nobody else wants to touch – Iceland, Greece. It’s just a matter of time before its economic interests drag it into local politics.
I have become fascinated with Iceland since its financial collapse. So the news that Iceland is about to strip the rights of its clubs to strip is an interesting one.
There is the fact that feminists in Iceland appear to be entirely united in opposition to prostitution, unlike the UK where heated debates rage over whether prostitution and lapdancing are empowering or degrading to women. There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only supported by feminists but also much of the population. A 2007 poll found that 82% of women and 57% of men support the criminalisation of paying for sex – either in brothels or lapdance clubs – and fewer than 10% of Icelanders were opposed.
To me, the level of almost unanimous support the women of Iceland has given to the issue, which demonstrates not only the backlash against the hedonistic and chauvinistic ways of the 2000s, but also showcases the homogeneity that is not altogether uncommon in the Nodics, but even more so in a country of 300,000.
Now if you remember Michael Lewis’ brilliant treatment of the Icelandic debacle back in 2009 (partial essay available here, Vanity Fair has restricted access to the whole piece so it seems, another Q&A here), it sounded to me that despite Iceland’s reputation on various gender equality indexes, the two sexes on the island are astonishing alienated and segregated from each other.
To me, this law’s passing demonstrates not some great leap of progress made by a progressive or an increasingly feminist state, but one that is seeing greater rifts between its two gender groups.
A rant that started with an Audi ad and meandered through the requisite American distaste for conformism eventually arrived at this.
Not that the tin-foil helmet crazies are in anyways more desirable than disenfranchised anarchist mobs taking over government buildings. And considering the reasons for protests: one for introducing universal health insurance and/or financial sector bailouts, the other against belt-tightening in wages and benefits, I’m not entirely sure the comparison can really be considered parallel.
The majority of us hit by economic hardships just want to put our heads down and get on with the whole thing, kind of like, well, Ireland.
But just for fun: fringe to fringe, protester to protester, crazy to crazy, which one would you rather?
[T]he difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament, demanding to know why government didn’t do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multitrillion-dollar porkathons. This isn’t karaoke. These guys are singing “I’ll do it my way” for real.
Image via Wikipedia
There’s been a lot of reporting from the British and the international press on Iceland’s rejection of the Icesave bill. The bill outlined basic compensation scheme from the Icelandic to the British and Dutch governments that repays the money lost from the collapsed Icesave.
Most of the discussion so far has focused on Iceland’s increasing isolation from the international community, dimmed prospects on its EU membership as a result of not playing ball, the potential for further debt downgrades by credit agencies, etc.
But questions linger. Questions like, why did the Icelandic reject the bill, knowing fully the long-term implications of such action – i.e. no loans from the IMF, no loans from neighbours Norway or Denmark, certain further currency devaluation and sovereign debt default?
And even if the government’s handling of the situation reflects the popular will of the constituents, does it truly represent the best interest for its people, in the long run? So why are the Icelandic is effectively playing Chicken with its debtors?
As expected, there’s talks of little else on this island of 300,000. At last no longer fretting about being forgotten – at least not when it still owes others money, its people are nevertheless jittery over a future that looks increasingly uncertain, insignificant, and more irrelevant by the day.
There’s looking to countries like Argentina, which defaulted on its debt back in 2001, and seems to have recovered without foreign credit. And there’s the legal argument that a government is under no obligation to assume debts racked up by the offshore division of a private bank.
I’ve been following an excellent Icelandic blogger on this issue, and comments on her posts are usually the most interesting.
Going from the measured pessimist envisioning a Eastern German existence:
I’m pessimistic about the future of Iceland, but I think the government could forestall disaster by a variety of heavy-handed, interventionist measures. Curiously, the country could end up as control-economy like the old East Germany, where everyone had jobs and housing and all the beets and potatoes they could eat, but no foreign goods. Read more...
Indeed it has.
Politically, and economically.
Over the past three decades, states that privatized alongside the Chicago school doctrine, and doggedly pursued market solutions, particularly ones in the west, such as the US, UK, and Iceland, have experienced the most violent internal convulsions.
That’s no news.
But countries that resisted the so-called Anglo-Saxon model are now smug and ready to regulate. Within the EU, this means one thing:
[T]he French and the Germans are in the ascendancy in Europe, while the British influence is fading.
[The British] fear France and Germany are out for revenge, leading to a flood of new Europe-wide regulation aimed at preventing a future crisis that will drive banks out of the City of London and overwhelm UK businesses with red tape.
Image via Wikipedia
Like other pockets of Europe, Ireland experienced phenomenal growth in the 2000s.
Like Iceland for example, both relatively poor before major economic changes took place, soared to unimaginable heights during the boom, and now shot down to earth and licking their wounds.
But are the Irish more mentally equipped to deal with the recession, given their not-so-distant memories of poverty and hardship?
We have a long and proud history of poverty, I don’t know if that helps. When I was growing up, you never asked another Irish person what they did for a living, and you never turned a beggar from the door. These are lyrical and dangerous clichés, of course (though incidentally true): Ireland was by no means a classless society. Even so, I do see differences from other countries in the play of rage, entitlement and delight around money: who has it, who deserves it, who gets cross.
An insightful narrative of the recession months, as seen by the Irish.
Growing up, whenever I screwed up in a test or assignment in school and had to face my mom, I would always preface my failure by citing more spectacular blow-ups by my classmates. The habit never escaped me. Now instead of placating my parents, I use it as a self-administered sedative whenever things get bad. By reminding myself that it could be worse.
It’s easy to fall into a depressing spiral these days. There’s little voyeuristic pleasure in watching your economy on a high speed race heading for the cliff, especially when your savings and investments are wrapped in the vehicle.
But maybe you can take solace in the fact that we are all in this together. And whichever corner in the world you might be, there’s some level of financial uncertainty, maybe even serious suffering going on. But let’s take a break from self-pity today, and indulge ourselves in the guilty knowledge that out there in the big world somewhere, exist those that screwed up (or got screwed) way worse.
1. Iceland. With a population of 300,000, this northern tundra is the size of Kentucky. Inheriting this insular landscape with your large extended family, gifted with little other than thermal geezers and short days, the setting is already rather glum.
Add reckless Icelandic fishermen, stir in some explosive banking capital epitomized by a stock market that multiplied nine times from 2003 to 2007, and we get the tragic climax: a bankrupt country with debt 850% of its GDP. To put that into perspective, an average of $330,000 is owed by every Icelandic man, woman, and child to its numerous and very angry foreign debtors.
What’s worse, to get out of this mess, the Icelandic has abandoned their currency, and now needs to claw its way up Brussels’ ass to save its economy. To be allowed entrance in the EU, it will most likely have no other choice than accepting reduced fishing grounds in exchange for debt forgiveness. The monumental humiliation of it all will shatter the Icelandic collective confidence for decades to come.
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