What is happening???????

[gisli]

"ICELANDERS have woken up in a new novel by Franz Kafka, where everybody is guilty by default......"


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/opinion/16kristmannsson.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gauti&st=cse&oref=slogin


I feel fine just amazed and pussled. We are victims say some......the quilty ones say others. I don´t know but I am sensing that we are heading into times where it is easier to hate then love.....easier to make enemies then friends......This feeling frightens me I hope it is just my imagination.

[Bat]

It must be rather frightening to you and the rest of your people, too, Gisli.
I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have some backup...I still don't know if we're just printing money, hand over fist, that will become worthless. My ignorance of financial matters is woeful, to say the least!
I do hope things get better for all of us...hang in there, and know that our best wishes are with you and Kata.

I read that article you cited, and didn't realize that Iceland hasn't always been a capitalist country...what was it before, a Russian satellite, or what?
My ignorance of your history is also deplorable! Bear with me.
I'm so glad you and Kata got to come to the Jannic before everything fell apart! We do hope you can come again one of these days.

[gisli]

Thanks for the reasuring and kind words Bat. Going to the Jannic was the best move I have taken in many years, will never ever be able to thank all the RedJacks and Agnesis's for coming up with that idea and following it through.
Kind of wanted to go this coming november to see Janis but that is out of the charts now....plain mission impossible.


I read that article you cited, and didn't realize that Iceland hasn't always been a capitalist country...what was it before, a Russian satellite, or what?

Not a wizard in financial matters either but I believe the system we had is called "Being Poor".....we had to watch out for the little money we got from abroad (outport) stayed the same as the one we bought from abroad. (import) I remember these times well cause I lived in them...........obviously since I was, after all, born in the middle of the last century:cool:


The more I read about this global recession we have found ourselfs in and the why´s.....the more angry I get. Ran into this article written in march

The North Atlantic conspiracy
Is Iceland the victim of a financial conspiracy?


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/the-north-atlantic-conspiracy/


.....and comments like this: Not just Iceland, all E.U. countries.
And it’s not a conspiracy, it’s the “ingenuity of the markets”…

— Posted by RennieB

.................and the worst part is they only talk about money, money and money in the news and no sport:mad:

[DaveM]

The United States is starting to look a bit like a Kafka novel as well. Not sure yet whether it is "The Trial" or "The Castle", but either way, am not looking forward to finding out!

[gisli]

The United States is starting to look a bit like a Kafka novel as well. Not sure yet whether it is "The Trial" or "The Castle", but either way, am not looking forward to finding out!


Or The Metamorphosis a novella. The story of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin"

[hoops]

i don't know how yet, because there is so much greed and hunger for power out there. we need to get the greatest minds together...we've been living in the "comfort" of the work that was done by the better minds in the 60's and early 70's. one thing i do know is that it is time for an evolution. we've been chasing the same dream the same way for for too long, time to look down a new road.
peace
hoops

[DaveM]

But Gisli, it's not you who's been transformed....it's your surroundings. I do fear that a number of Americans have turned into Gregor Samsa during the Presidential campaign.

[gisli]

But Gisli, it's not you who's been transformed....it's your surroundings. I do fear that a number of Americans have turned into Gregor Samsa during the Presidential campaign.

Ohh okey.....but if so, when they wake up after the election.....you think they may or will find themself in a Kurt Vonnegut novel????

[david uk]

the whole situation is very surreal. It's affecting everyone everywhere.

[DaveM]

Gisli....it could be.

Hoops, I think you're quite right. During the middle of the century this country built the largest economy and the greatest "brain trust" the world has ever seen. In many respects, we have been reaping the fruits of the incredible creation of wealth and infrastructure that followed World War II. But it has not been maintained. My personal belief has been that the U.S. economy could have collapsed some years ago were it not for the near simultaneous developments of affordable personal computers and the Internet, which created an entirely new infrastructure and a set of economic opportunities such as had never existed before. That continues to evolve, and in many respects where General Motors was once the best indicator of the health of the American economy, Microsoft has replaced it as a far better barometer.

One important thing seems to have changed in the years since World War II. The century began as "the era of the little guy". And for decades "the little guy" meant the guy with an idea--the Wright Brothers building an airplane in the back of a bicycle shop, Henry Ford testing his engine in a kitchen sink by candlelight, Thomas Edison taking a third-grade education and using it to reshape the world, Andrew Carnegie making himself wealthy in the steel industry....but leaving behind a foundation which has long since distributed far more money than he ever made during his lifetime.

We must not forget that even in relatively recent times, Apple Computer started as a garage workshop. But all too often, "the little guy" has come to mean not the average worker, not the man with an idea, but the man with his hand out.

That man didn't build America. And he won't keep it going for long, either.

[gisli]

Found this in the blog world......


To my dutch friends
I´m heading your way tomorrow so I´ll be landing at Schiphol in a plane from Icelandair, there might be some of those big bad banking boys on the plan, the ones we (the other 99,9% of us icelanders) are all so sorry for not taming better - just in case you are all very angry and this we understand - I want you to know they are all rather big around the waist, hairy, rather young, with whitened teeth and very guiltridden around the eyes, your really can´t miss them. We the ,,others” are the ones with bent backs and sorry looking faces that should read ,, we are in debt forever”.

(I of course will disquise myself as danish) :o


Strange things happening to icelandic tourists abroad, they are being spit at in the streets, thrown out of stores, theyre credit cards cut in half for none seemingly reason at all, students thrown out of theyre apartments and into the streets for no seemingly reason at all:eek:

And more and more. One was asked if he was Icelandic when paying for a hamburger, "Yes" he replayed......"Then you need not to pay".
Wow, the Icelander said, "Thank you so very much. But why dont I need to pay"
"It is not this stores policy to let "idiots" pay", was the answer.

Ohhh well I guess when you need a scapegoat...........pick on the little guy.....

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=1yBD41Av3n8&feature=related

[Bat]

Geeze, Gisli...if they treat you that way, what on Earth do they do to Americans, stone them? Yikes.