I wasn’t bashing the quota system itself. Just the way it was set up to guarantee money to a certain few, letting everyone else “rent” quotas from those few.
It didn’t start out as such, but now it basically is.
But boy am I glad for the fish now. Fish, aluminum and tourism are going to be the building blocks of Iceland 3.0. To be delivered to a system near you, once we sort this 2.0 (banks) mess out.
Now you got me heading straight to the kitchen for my conga-pots and pans 
What? The busty blond Viking maidens are coming to us? Hura! Uh… waitaminnit… ‘busty blonde viking maidens’…
:: flips through dictionary ::
:: ah, here it is ::
AAAHHH!!!
:: grabs battle axe, heads for gym to start practicing ::
I kinda hate to ask this question, and I hope it doesn’t come across as tacky, but here it goes anyway. Iceland has always been one of my must-see places. I have some free time coming up in November and December. Would it be an absolute terrible time to visit, or would it be a good time to, well, find some deals, I guess. Yes, I know, a country is on the brink of complete economic collapse, and here I am, a tourist looking for a bargain. But, to be honest, I’ve never been able to visit before because of the cost, and I’m sure a little bit of tourism income would be helpful to someone…
pulykamell, I would not worry about it. Exploiting foreign poverty is an ancient and honored tradition. After all, “tropical paradise” is just code for “a place so impoverished that I can pay natives to do all the chores I am too lazy to do”.
Just remember not to pickle, ferment or dry the fish 
Hey, we’re counting on you tourists to help us out here! I did write that tourism will be one of the pillars for 3.0 
Weatherwise, you could pick a better season. But then again, you’ve got a shot at the Northern Lights and to enjoy the rain, wind and darkness
Basically, you need to decide how much the weather matters. If you don’t mind it, you can do lots of cool shit and see lots of nice places. If you do mind, come in summer.
Considering how often you’ve done that lately, I’m surprised they still let you in with you axe
(or do you just have tons of tons of different gyms )
So I take it the auction didn’t go well?
Is the phallic museum in any danger?
This is a worrying story:
My friend knows an Icelandic mature student, over here with her small child, and living incredibly frugally. She went to the bank this weekend - unsurprisingly, none of her cards work.
Furthermore, she’s waiting on a grant from the Icelandic government to live off, payable in króna, which is valueless and may not even be issued. She is totally broke right now and doesn’t know what to do.
Yeah, we’re hearing it more and more, both in the news and from friends and family. The big problem is that if you study abroad and take student loans you get payed at the end of the semester, at the rate of exchange that’s valid then. So you need to live on credit all semester and hope that the payment later can cover it.
Which makes life incredibly sucky for the people studying abroad.
Am I to assume from this that the only way you can pay for food is in another currency? Euros or the pathetic Dollar?
If she doesn’t pay rent in a worthless currency, is she in danger of being evicted?
The Russians might have the highest bid. A loan of 4 billion Euros, with “no strings attached”, is being discussed.
And the Phallic Museum will stay open as long as there are tourists willing to visit 
Basically, she can’t purchase non-worthless currency, since there is still in effect a block on all money-transfers from Iceland.
You can’t sell ISK at the moment.
And in a bigger perspective, that means that all companies on Iceland cannot order new things as all foreign suppliers hesitate to give us credit, since they just don’t know what’ll happen.
As I wrote in an earlier post. This is the first time in over a year that I’m glad that my company has overstock.
I’m sorry really, but I read this thread and can’t get this out of my mind:
Hopefully things are a bit better than this, if not then may I recommend shouting “Yo Ho”, sucking down some nice rum and going with the flow.
Best of wishes to you.
No need to apologise for the behaviour of your banks, I feel we need to apologise for our government’s use of Anti-Terror legislation to freeze Icelandic bank accounts on the grounds of it being damaging to our interests.
Cite:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/10/marketturmoil-iceland
What I don’t understand is how we can use our law outside our borders. Surely this is interfering in the running of a sovereign state?
So another great act by our Prime Minister, Iceland now ranks alongside Bin Laden. What is the world coming to?
He’s not using it outside your borders. It was just about seizing UK-registered property (and money) of the Icelandic banks. This to cover most of the balance on the IceSave and Kaupthing Edge accounts. Then he’s contacting some Icelandic quisling (;)) lawyers to go after the rest of the money through the Icelandic system.
As for Bin-Ladin. Yeah, what is the world coming to…
Thanks for the clarification, I obviously didn’t read the article in full.
That makes sense, although I still think that the use of terror laws is an abuse of the legal system.
I’m a cold weather, overcast kind of guy. How much darkness are we talking here? Plus, I would love to see the Northern Lights. Another one of my dreams.
No shit. But it appeals to my wicked side that I’ve been compared to Bin-Laden
In late December, when it’s the worst, the sun gets up above the horizon around 11 and sets around 2-3. Now it sets around 6-7 and rises around 8-9. But it’s not really high in the sky as in summer (damn, I miss summer).
And man! Watching the Northern Lights, while relaxing in a 40°C hot-tub with the air at sub-zero (C) is a little slice of heaven!