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.

To an anti-imperialist that prefers default to “economic occupation”:

Fear-mongering is going to come to a fevered pitch as we get closer to the vote. Don’t believe it! Things are going to be bad regardless of the decision. If you reject Iceseave, then you will at least have a country to call your own at the end of the day. The social unrest that is sure to come will be Icelandic business, not UN or EU business, i.e., no foreign troops to protect foreign property as is on display in Haiti right now.

To the true pessimist, whom seems Iceland losing either way:

The Icelandic people need to think long and hard about the aftermath. Paying Icesave, and their other debts, saddles them with a heavy tax burden and the possibility of losing social benefits for decades. Not paying Icesave may lead to massive inflation, limited access to foreign goods (including oil), and limit their ability to expand their economy again. Which would you choose?

But not before the negotiator chimes in:

This is a negotiation, it is only a question of terms. Of course these other players do not want to renegotiate, but surely will if forced to. Chances are these loans will not be withdrawn in the interim. It is a chance taken now with courage, or the consequences of a bad deal long years hence.

Especially when taking into account UK’s hard stance as something deeply political:

Be seen to be willing to pay something back- the capital, yes, and it seems that in time, most of this will be covered by the Landisbanks assets. But it is the interest that is unfair and crippling, and if the UK and Dutch Governments refuse to act fairly on this, I assume the result will be future defaulting of the debt. The problem in the UK is that there is going to be a General Election in May and I suspect, given the debt the UK now has, no politician is going to want to be seen as acting ’soft’.

And on a slightly more sinister tone, perhaps what’s underneath the island has something to do with it all:

From this angle it would appear that Icelanders are being blackmailed into paying Icesave just for the principle of it all. Or maybe forcing a natural resource-rich country further into debt has an alternate motive.  British politician Denis MacShane suggested Iceland sell its energy resources to settle Icesave debt. Oil is awfully expensive and increasingly sparse – wouldn’t it be nice for those Brits and Dutch to have a geothermal island under their thumb?

Below is a presentation that explains the disputed division of claims between Iceland and UK.  The Icesave referendum happens March 6, more to come.

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.

2. Germany. Looking at the astronomical debts of the US, economists and politicians no doubt salivate at the thought of being on the other side of the balance sheet. How sweet it must be: to make things and sell them to the rest of the world, to have a manufacturing driven instead of a consumption driven economy, and to run a budget surplus instead of a deficit. Except grass is almost never greener on the other side: cue Germany.

Germany is the world’s largest exporter. Surprised it’s not China? What’s more, it’s one of the major auto manufacturing countries in the world. One in six jobs in the country is related to the auto industry. When its wealthy European and American customers halted their vehicle orders last quarter, the factories became empty – of workers, not cars.

Germany is also heavily dependent on machinery sales to Eastern Europe and Asia. With large-scale industrial projects in those regions put on the backburner amidst falling demand for finished products exported to Western Europe and America, Germany’s manufacturing orders are nearly cut by half this year.

It’s one thing to recklessly run up debt, chase property bubbles, and get punished for it. It’s another to slavishly economize your finances by pinching public spending and controlling your labour costs, and still get dragged into the mud. There’s no getting off easy for good behaviour, darn it!

3. Japan. Combining the worst ills of both rapidly falling exports, high public debts, lasting psychological and financial baggage from its previous decade-long recession, Japan is now dubbed the “structural pessimist”.

And who can blame them? Japan does not have the deep pockets to stimulate its economy nor placate its struggling citizens through either pumping money into public projects (i.e. China), nor going into additional debts by exercising fiscal and monetary policies (i.e. US). Clearly reeling from large public debts accumulated from the last recession, Japan is tapped out from any more public spending. Nor can it rely on the export sector Asian neighbours for sales in machinery, nor the US for finished auto and electronic products. Now combine the gloomy economic outlook with a lack of Social Security or tax-advantaged retirement plans, you get an excessively frugal population that, well, have resorted to some truly miser methods to save money, such as using old bath water to do laundry.

Surely domestic consumption cannot be the only engine driving growth. But at a time when little government stimulus will prove effective, main wealth-generation machine (export) is shut off, and now domestic consumption falling year after year, is Japan kaput?

4. Ireland. Oh to fly so high and fall so fast. One day, you’re the Celtic Tiger, the textbook success of a low-tax and open economy, in Europe of all places. After millennia of oppression, poverty, violent clashes and petty bullying by its stronger neighbour, Ireland was finally able to stand straight and hold its own.

Corporate investments poured in from all directions to fuel its growth. Ryanair, Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, Oracle, Lotus, Microsoft, made Ireland the unlikely high-tech and investment capital of western Europe.

The commercial corporate boom led to a construction boom and exuberant optimism. Massive borrowing followed against (rising) property prices, leading to a ballooning construction industry that pre-crisis, made up one fifth of the total economy.

Then the American sub-prime crisis hit. Ireland became the first euro zone country to officially enter into a recession. With global contraction, many companies have slashed jobs or bailed altogether. The country is left with an Americanized mess that includes shaky banks, collapsed building sector, and little credit. Except in a country of 4 million, and short of a sensational Icelandic flop, the rest of the world barely hears the Irish whimper.

picture source: jesper-gfx