Today's Financial Times features an essay by a British journalist named Robert Jackson, who has lived in Iceland for the last five years, on the financial meltdown there ("Letter from Iceland"). In it, Jackson quotes the Icelandic singer Bjork (pictured above1):
Bjork, Iceland’s ambassadress of cool, summed it up in The Times on October 28: “Young families are threatened with losing their houses and elderly people their pensions. This is catastrophic. There is also a lot of anger. The six biggest venture capitalists in Iceland are being booed in public places and on TV and radio shows; furious voices insist that they sell all their belongings and give the proceeds to the nation. Gigantic loans, it has been revealed, were taken out abroad by a few individuals and without the full knowledge of the Icelandic people. Now the nation seems to be responsible for having to pay them back.”
1This photo comes from the Sydney Morning Herald, and was taken at a performance in Japan two years ago.
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3 comments:
That was a truly excellent write-up in the FT.
Amazing that a population body that small can have such a global impact; financially, culturally, etc.
It is amazing -- only ~300k of them.
The WHite House press secretary told President Bush that two Brazillian soliers had been killed overnight by terrorists.
He paused,then said that was a horrible thing.
Then he asked quietly...
"How many is a brazillion?"
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