Another articlein the Wall Street Journal. This one about the whys of the crisis and the new government.
Here’s an interesting article about social renewal after collapse. It draws parallels between Iceland and Argentina.
It has some interesting points, but she draws them a bit to far, to be honest. This bit for example:
This was not really controversial. Most people agreed with it, and the “extraordinary wilderness” that was destroyed, was mostly sands and a region so ugly that no one visited (as the current head of the Greens wrote in a paper, back in the 80.s).
She also points out the monopoly of Baugur (whom I despise). They have a 60% market share in Reykjavik, but a lot lower one in the rest of the country. And yes, you can buy fresh fish pretty much everywhere.
But she does have some interesting points, just don’t buy it “hook line and sinker”.
So how are things in Iceland these days, WtR? You seem to have fallen out of our headlines lately.
Well, they’re pretty much what they used to be. And as far as I can tell, not much has changed with the new government… still waiting to see what they’ll do.
Whaling is still on, as 66% of Icelanders support it (as do I, but I’m not looking for a discussion on it in this thread).
General elections will be held in April and they presumably will lead to a HUGE change in the set up of parliament.
We might be getting a new constitution, with a special “constitutional parliament” leading the way on that.
And I’m still unemployed 
But things are in general quite good. People won’t be going on weekend trips to Glasgow or Copenhagen, but most families still have two cars, live in their big houses and curse the fact that they won’t be able to buy a new car and flatscreen this year. People are adapting to the new plummeted Krona, but it’ll take awihle.
This caught my eye:
…U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown used an antiterrorist law to close down Icelandic banks in Britain. The British government also put one of them, Landesbanki, together with the Icelandic ministry of finance and the central bank, on a list of terrorist organizations, alongside al Qaeda and the Talibans…
WTF? Did he not have any better legal tool at his disposal to limit British exposure to bad Icelandic banking practices?
We’ve already been over this little matter in other threads, but as it seems, this isn’t an antiterrorist law per se. Just a poorly worded “cover all” act.