Crashola #3:
- The New York Times took a 48% hit in profits, and is preparing to sell off its baseball / sports holdings, including the Boston Red Sox.
- Brandeis University is selling off its Rose Art Museum’s holdings to raise cash. Bernie Madoff helped a lot here, if you know what I mean…
- The crashing economy is causing major political levels of unrest in Europe; the Icelandic government just fell because of the collapse of their overheated economy, and parts of the EU (mostly in areas that boomed only since the Soviet Union went poof, like Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Belarus and Ukraine) are starting to really get upset as the booms go to bust.
During their tenure as a coalition, Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn and Framsóknarflokkurinn favored the industrialization of Iceland, including the construction of aluminum smelter plants. The plants are controversial in Iceland as the energy burden to the small country is enormous and has already resulted in the construction of a huge dam (Kárahnjúka Dam) in what was once a pristine wilderness area. It’s also turned out, Icelanders are not interested in working at the plants resulting in outside labor, mostly Poles, coming to work in Iceland. It is estimated that the geothermal needs of the new and pending smelter plants will eventually use the majority of the power generated in Iceland or close to 95% of all power generated. The coalition is also responsible for the privatization of many of Iceland’s institutions - including banks - starting in 1996 under former Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson.
To date, privatisation has benefitted a handful of well-connected political insiders and their family members. The boards of most of the companies tend to be the same people, many of whom also have contacts to prominent members of the political parties as well as the court system. One of the demands Icelanders have of their government is a thorough investigation of the banks which are said to have handed out over $100 million in salaries and bonuses during the 5 years they were held in private hands (2003-2008). By now, you should be starting to get a hint as to why Icelanders are so damn angry at their government and its failure to protect them.