Jealous of Iceland

[SarahB]

Here is an entire nation of people who are ready to accept that they were living too far beyond their means and conclude that it was time to face the music. While still mid-journey and in the throes of discomfort (40-70 year-old Icelandic males are presently recorded as being "very angry" by researchers), they are getting on with it. There are no calls to double down on new national indebtedness to 'get things back to how they were.' They are not overrun with economists explaining how it would make sense for their central bank to simply flood the world with more Icelandic kronur. There is no sense that the illusory wealth brought about by the vast accumulation of debt is some sort of natural birthright that must be unquestioningly preserved.

In short, their attitudes and policies are nothing like those in the US.

Upon my return to the US, I was immediately greeted by the news that the recession had somehow ended a year ago, a period of time in which the number of civilians unemployed for 27 weeks or more had increased by 2,000,000+, and also heard that the Federal Reserve was considering expanding its money printing operations (in other words, the return of QE as a policy tool). These are two highly contradictory pieces of information, when you stop and think about it. The government is facing a sea of red budgetary ink as far as the eye can see, states are hemorrhaging, and housing continues to slump along. In all of this, one is hard pressed to find any sort of a conversation that goes like this: "We overdid it, there, and now it's time to tighten our belts and get used to living within whatever means our economy can actually support."

I could recite an nearly endless litany of facts, quotes and data all supporting the idea that the US is hell-bent on returning itself to a level of economic activity and growth that was provably overdone and unsustainable.

The difficult part for many in the US, including me, is the effort that it takes to maintain a vigilant stance when immersed in such a deep pool of complete denial. Part of me screams, "Get on with it already!" even as another part of me really does not want to get on with anything at all, preferring to use these steady moments to become better prepared for and more adjusted to whatever the new reality is going to be.

I note with mounting concern that I no longer care about things that used to provide me with much amusement and passion in the past. It's a form of burnout like we see in movies about war. The first time a single bullet gets shot past a new platoon, it sparks a vigorous reaction, "My god! That could have hit us! Yikes!" but by the end of the movie, some guys are standing around giving orders and talking to each other as mortars explode nearby and a steady whine of bullets fills the air around them. They no longer care, because they have been worn down in some elemental way, as if the human brain can only remain on high alert for so long before protecting its internal circuitry by shutting some of it down. Or perhaps it's simply what biologists call 'habituation' -- the process by which even sea slugs can be taught to ignore mild electrical shocks. My defense against this process of shutting down is to give talks, meet people, and increase my own personal and community resilience.

Through all of this, I find myself jealous of Iceland, whose natural and cultural resources permit an attainable vision of a stable and prosperous future, and which seems to be getting on with things by closing the gap between its prior excesses and future prospects.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/jealous-iceland/45089

[dkf]

1. Unlike Europe which is going on strike.

The fact is prices need to go up. There isn't enough profit to produce a livable wage at these margins.

[Javaman]

2. Denial is all we have left.

Take that away and what do you have? Reality. We can't deal with that just yet. Sadly, when we finally do, it will be much too late.

In the mean time, go out and buy something to fill your feelings of emptiness and lack of power. And as you march away from that store, with your wallet much more empty, you can feel safe in knowing that you helped save the nation! or rather, you helped fill the corporations pockets with more money you don't have. :)

But lying to ourselves it the American way or our form of Patriotism! It's our version of SOMA.

[Brickbat]

3. Well, when your entire nation has a population similar to that of Aurora, Colorado, and is extremely

homogenous, it's a little easier to do such things.

[EstimatedProphet]

4. Here's some reasons:

1) Iceland is not the world policeman;

2) Iceland almost certainly doesn't have an economic system dominated by super-wealthy tax cheats.

2) and 1) go hand in hand. The idea that we all have to become more austere as a country is bullshit. We can have everything we should have, and we can do it without tightening the belts of the average citizen - but to do so we need to get the 2 parasites of the uber-wealthy and the military-industrial complex off our backs.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. I just finished "Independent People"

by Halldór Laxness. I recommend it.

Independent People is the story of the sheep farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson, generally known in the novel as Bjartur of Summerhouses, and his struggle for independence.

an epic novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, originally published in four volumes between the years of 1933 and 1935. It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving on isolated crofts in an inhospitable landscape.

The novel is considered among the foremost examples of social realism in Icelandic fiction in the 1930s.<1> It is an indictment of materialism, the cost of the independent spirit to relationships, and capitalism itself. This book, along with several other major novels, helped Laxness win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.<2>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_People