Remember Iceland's bank collapse? The country's economy tanking, angry people yelling and banging cutlery on the icy streets of Reykjavík, and people around the world pointing fingers at Iceland, citing it as the worst example of greed taking over a society? There were some pretty nasty comments, mostly coming from Britain (many of whose citizens
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In more "civilized" cultures a man who had failed as monumentally as he had would have already thrown himself upon his sword.
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Also, empowering people is good, as long as there's a viable market in place where they could spend their money and send the big wheel of economy turning - provided that there already is an efficient economic structure in place like in Iceland.
Just let's not be fooled into believing that countries like Greece can in any way draw examples from Iceland. Because I've heard the argument "Greece should emulate Iceland's example" too often. Greece's situation is quite different, in that they went way too far with the welfare state. Welfare is a good thing, but only when used within reasonable limits. And they got carried away. What's worse, they systematically defrauded the EU into believing that everything was OK, until shit suddenly hit the fan.
Iceland's situation was different. It was more about easy loans at ridiculous interest rates, and a credit bubble, i.e. it had much to do with the banking sector gone wild, rather than any social
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We can see how a significantly bigger economy's debt (Greece) is destabilising both the Eurozone and the world economy. And as an aside, a single day's banking IT failure showed to many Britons just how bad it could have gotten if our banks hadn't been rescued when they were.
Mind you, hats off; Iceland has done exceptionally well given the nature of the crisis; the response has been rational, and a better working example than poor ol' Ireland's forced response to a slightly different sort of debt crisis.
Alas, we in the UK are led by folk ideologically opposed to regulation, taxation, and social cohesion. And the US is similar, if not more extreme.
Oh well. Fortune favour the plucky Icelanders. Not at our expense, of course, but nevertheless...
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Um, I didn't. But thanks, because I would've, anyway. :)
Each country has its specifics. And it should adapt their approach to said specifics. I'm far from the thought that one model applies for all, that's simply unrealistic.
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AHAHAHA! Keep dreaming. ;)
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TL;DR: I quite agree.
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That ain't what the OP said happened. No debt was increased on the gov.
As it is, we are printing our way out of the wallow of failing debt, so either way our economy will contract (either through forgiveness or dilution), but the latter way-again, the way we're doin' it-has historically led to hyperinflation.
Strap in.
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