Tuesday 23 December 2008

Iceland, "No, my little boy, it’s not that easy"



There is not enough words to describe the tragic, real time, story unfolding in Iceland.

Older are wiser and should guide society as long as there are fair and sensible. Today Societies are lead by business, law and journalist schools issued from known factories around the world. Like in Chaplin's "Modern Time", those "factory chain" created, and still create, people that are thinking, acting, conditioned and playing the same way, with the same rules and tools. Uniformization allows to create more coupled systems, where mistakes are amplified and hard to contained.

"All for one, and one for all", could clearly describe what has happened in the past decade or so. Bonus and wealth went into a concentrated amount of people ("All for one") while others, the majority, borrowed the wealth that was left over. When the system became instable, shaken by the amount of greed build up during so many years, it needed rescue. Government, is the hero that is appearing to get everybody out the hole ("one for all"). Government, led by politicians who will not use their money-lets be clear and transparent-, but instead tax payer money, to rescue bandits, disguised robbers, in the name of all.

In Iceland, in a land where politicians were mere plot makers and Bankers "Draculas" of modern times -sucking the wealth of real people and transforming a traditional, authentic society into one that is driven by McDonald type ideology and whose main heart replaced by virtual, borrowed values.

It all collapsed. The process was witnessed through many years by gamblers, state and institutions looking in ways of profiting of its destruction or its fall- For them, they were not people living in Iceland but instead assets.

And now the voice of the wise, speaking of the Icelanders: "The Writer and The Priest"

"Some Icelanders say the easy money of the past decade eroded the island’s traditions. A sheep farmer in the 1934 novel, “Independent People,” by Iceland’s only Nobel laureate, Halldor Laxness, preferred freedom from debt to any material comforts. His motto was: “I don’t owe anyone a penny.”

That philosophy may return, says Birgir Asgeirsson, 63, the priest at Reykjavik’s Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran church.

“I grew up learning that you work for what you get, but kids today just get what they want,” Asgeirsson says. “Now I can hear parents say ‘No, my little boy, it’s not that easy.’”"

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Helsinki stock index has dropped 50% this year. Show me something that is not bubble?

HousingFinland said...

You are right. It all started sometime in the 82 or 87. Central bankers always have reflated the economy when a slowdown happened...

Now, it seems that the "beast" has mutated, and is able to withstand any monetary policies- it doesn't affect it any more.

Stock have fallen by 50%, so did the consumer confidence.

About 2 years ago, I though that house price will fall by 20-30% by 2010. Now I think the possibility to have a 40-60% drop by then is not negligible.

Anonymous said...

where you come from!