um … i need a hulk, can I hit you up for some?
Just joking, actually I have 2 hulks but Id sell body parts for a rorqual …
Hah… I was thinking about posting essentially the same thing, only on a smaller scale.
It’s hit the local Toronto paper.
Hope you and yours are okay, WormTheRed.
Thanks a lot man!
I’m fine myself. Am very glad I resisted family pressure on buying a place last year (you’re renting, omg!), but am thinking about leaving the place if things go further south.
And the rest of the family are pretty well set as well. No-one needs to sell their home or is at risk of loosing their jobs.
It’s just the general atmosphere that blows. Big time.
I’m glad; I was worried you’d be out begging for euros at the airport or something.
There’s no way to say what might happen in the next few months, but I still want to try to come over next summer on the way to Europe. And hey, Canada’s better off than a lot of places. We still have jobs available. You may have to serve coffee and donuts at Tim Horton’s, but it’s a living.
Hate to be self-centered, but is that true? I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland. Is this a good time of year?
I would too. Even though I’ve always thought of myself as a big-city person, and you don’t really have any, the natural setting and history of Iceland have always fascinated me. As has the language.
It’s always a good time to visit Iceland 
As long as you don’t expect good and warm weather, you’ll be just fine. It’s rainy, windy and about 5-10° c these days and getting darker.
Still, we’re probably gonna get a lot of shopping-tourists for Christmas-season, loads of shopping at darn good prices for you visitors. And with the way things are going, I’m counting on a volcano erupting any day now 
Barring an eruption, there are plenty of beautiful places you can visit by car.
Send me a PM if you’re really interested in coming and I’ll send you some hints, tips and links.
Been reading up on the current crisis via Dagens Nyheter and had a couple questions for you, if you have a moment:
-Are the IMF and OECD still arguing for privatizing most of the Housing Financing Fund?
-What’s the popular reaction to that?
Nobody knows what the IMF and OECD are saying at the moment, since they haven’t had any press conferences about it. All we know is that the IMF was here a few days ago and they probably still are.
As for the popular reaction. Hell no! It’s the only sound mortgage institute on the market now and they will take over most of (if not all) the mortgages the nationalized banks held.
Thanks. I’d looked at the IMF and OECD websites to see what they were saying but their material is at least a month old. I wasn’t aware of what would happen to the mortgages held by the private banks (I know Iceland had taken over two of the three largest banks but Kaupthing was still on the loose) so that adds an interesting angle to it.
What are some good mainstream media sites in Iceland that have English pages?
That’s all three now. Kaupþing was taken over just this night.
And the government is starting to show its plans with them. So far 1/3, or 550, of the employees at Landsbankinn have been laid off with a 1 month severance package instead of the lawfully mandated 3 months (I guess they government doesn’t have to follow the rules). Most of the cuts are in the foreign dealers and the market rooms.
They’re cutting it down to a standard bank which pretty much will only handle normal old-school banking stuff.
Expect the same to happen to the other two as well.
As for news in Icelandic, Morgunblaðið - the biggest morning paper - has a version in English. Visir, might have one, but I couldn’t find it on a quick search.
Good luck mate hopefully things will get better so dont lose all hope just yet.
The worrying thing is that when things are bad in the Norse homelands there is a tradition of them going" a Viking"to distant shores.
Stand by Western Europe!
A rather obvious question and I suspect the answer will be what one would expect – but what is the mood on the streets these past few days? Any mobs of people in front of the banks? Businessmen lying drunk in the gutter?
Depressed, combined with a big pile of “whatthefuckishappening”. No mobs or rushes to take out money (where to put them instead? They’ll be worthless pretty soon either way). But downtown was even more crowded than usual last w/e and I suspect the same this one.
In general, people are looking for someone to blame. And are settling on about 10 totally different scores.
I know what I want done and who’s head I want on a stick. But I’m keeping it to myself right now.
Are prices rising rapidly in the shops/gas station, etc.?
Not yet. We’ll see what happens next week when the grocery stores run out (they usually run on 2 weeks stock) and in a few with the gas-stations (Iceland usually has 30-40 days in stock).
Mostly, I think, we are going to see empty shelves if things don’t sort out. Simply because no company can afford* to purchase from abroad and sell at a reasonable price. For the first time ever, I’m quite grateful my company has an overstock of most things
*Or get reasonable credit
What would 150,571 ISK buy me today? PS, if the shit really hits the fan WormTheRed you can always sleep on my couch. Just don’t be plundering any monasteries when you get here.
A very nice party weekend Or the full rent on my shared apartment with appliances included for one month. Can’t tell you in any other currency since they’ve blocked all international transfers 
And thanks for the offer! I’ll let you know when I set sails with the longship
Blocked all international transfers? :eek:
Are we going to have to air-drop bales of Canadian dollars? Send in euros in rubber boats? Sneak USD in via fishing trawler?
Um… you guys do have sufficient basic food supplies, even if you have to live on steamed mutton and fish?