The compelling and authoritative story of the financial destruction of Iceland—a saga that mirrors, in microcosm, the forces that caused the global economic crisis. The economic crisis that emerged in America in 2008 unleashed a veritable epidemic of ill health around the world. However it was Iceland, whose population of three hundred thousand had the world’s highest GDP per capita and counted itself the happiest of countries, that caught the worst cold. It has nearly killed them. No story from the economic crisis of 2008 is more evocative than I celand’s. The names may be unfamiliar—Johanesson, Bjoergolfsson, Oddsson—but their exuberance, greed, and miscalculation have many counterparts on our shores. And however traumatic the collapse of individual companies may be in the United States, in Iceland’s case an entire country melted down. All the wealth accumulated in the previous decade—during which a new breed of Icelanders had dared to believe they could compete economically on an international level, during which Reykjavik became the Capital of Cool—disappeared practically overnight. Iceland’s story shows how closely the world economy is interconnected: The default on subprime mortgages in the U .S. led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which led directly to the run on Iceland’s banks, which forced local authorities in Britain to switch off the heating in their classrooms. With panache and color, Roger Boyes tells the inside story of the bankrupting of I celand: how it happened, the human dramas—from politicians to financiers to fishermen—that continue to swirl around it, and the lessons we can not ignore. Published on the first anniversary of its collapse, Meltdown Iceland is a cautionary tale for our times, an authoritative and compelling account of the financial destruction of a tiny country whose saga should resonate for us all.
Meltdown Iceland
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"British correspondent Boyes, a veteran when it comes to covering Iceland and its 300,000 citizens, recounts how the country's financial saga began in the 1990s with the privatization of banks and a series of accommodative government policies... Boyes goes beyond the financial crisis to explain the country's social structure, cultural outlook, and political and business hierarchy... For anyone interested in Iceland, Boyes's work is absolutely essential. For those needing material on the global nature of the credit crisis, this is a great supplementary source."—Library Journal
"How did the tiny, remote island nation of Iceland become a casualty of the global financial crisis? Boyes, correspondent for the Financial Times and the Times of London, has been reporting from Iceland since he was sent on his first assignment to cover the “Cod War” in 1976. In Iceland, as elsewhere, the seeds of destruction were planted 25 years earlier with the privatization and deregulation of the Reagan-Thatcher years... When it all fell apart during the global financial crisis, Icelandic banks collapsed, bankrupting the entire nation. Boyes follows the saga involving a mere handful of bankers and politicians, but the story becomes a microcosm of the situation facing the world at large."—Booklist
A valuable adjunct to the small but growing literature surrounding the current economic crisis."—Kirkus Reviews
“An energetic exploration of lessons to be drawn from a statelet that skidded toward bankruptcy a year ago this month.”—Bloomberg.com
About the Author
Roger Boyes is an award-winning correspondent, having covered Western and Eastern Europe for the past thirty years. He currently writes for the Times of London, and has in the past written for the Financial Times. He has been reporting from Iceland since he was sent on his first foreign assignment to cover the Cod War in 1976. He lives in Berlin.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Moderately Instructive, Though Far From Entertaining,
By Steven M. Anthony (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (Hardcover)
This case study is a perfect example of the benefits and dangers of leverage. During periods of expansion, leverage can result in explosive growth; such was the case with Ireland and Iceland. Leverage in the face of contraction, however, can be catastrophic. Meltdown Iceland tracks the stratospheric rise and calamitous collapse of the Icelandic economy during the first decade of the 21st century.It has been advanced that Iceland's demise is a microcosm of the financial meltdown experienced by the world markets and the United States in particular. It is on a scale, however, that can be grasped far more easily than the trillion dollar figures bandied about so easily on a larger scale (One economist estimates that Iceland's meltdown was caused by a mere thirty people!). Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to somehow label Iceland as a smaller model of the United States. As the author points out, Iceland is virtually without hard assets of any kind. It built a veritable house of cards, with enormous debt ratios and loans which had little or no security behind them. In fact, Iceland can be more clearly seen as a larger version of a credit card debt laden, asset poor, American consumer than a smaller version of the United States financial system. It doesn't take long to get a vague idea of where, according to the author, Iceland's troubles began. Time and time again, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, through their acolyte David Oddsson, are mentioned in connection with the root cause of Iceland's predicament. Initially, a poor, sleepy, backwater country was dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century by virtue of its strategic location as a NATO outpost. American servicemen and hard currency made Iceland a modern nation; the author examines the positives and negatives of the transformation. But the advent of Reagan/Thatcher style privatization and the destruction of the Icelandic social ethic are identified as the root cause of Iceland's stratospheric rise and predictable calamitous failure. The first quarter of this book is moderately interesting in setting the "scene of the crime" through an analysis of Icelandic history and some of the figures therein. The book soon bogs down, however, in an overly detailed "blow by blow" account of the numerous machinations contrived by the "Young Vikings" who allegedly hijacked Iceland's economy through a conglomeration of the countries industry and banking systems. As the house of cards begins to unravel, interest returns, and the final 75 pages are again moderately entertaining. Unfortunately, there are numerous misspellings and grammatical errors; far too many to be excused in even an "advanced reading copy". For example, in referring to the Glass-Steagall Banking Act, it is observed that "the Act was repeated, not by Ronald Reagan, but by a Democrat, Bill Clinton". I think what the author is looking for is "repealed". Quite a significant difference, to repeat as opposed to repeal. Also, this beauty: "Iceland is a Lutheran country, but an understand one". ??? There are numerous other similar errors. At times, the economic analysis is far too dense for amateurs such as me. At others it is laughably naïve and simplistic. My impression is that the writer of this book couldn't exactly decide what he wanted it to be, an academic economic treatise or a moderately entertaining look at what could have been a fascinating case study. As a result, it tries to be both and ends up being neither.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A powerfully illuminating analysis of a catastrophe,
By Eggcrate "glodphlex" (New York City) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (Hardcover)
I must have received a better edited edition of Meltdown, as none of the problems with the text cited by earlier reviewers appeared in mine.Boyes has done an excellent job investigating the interaction of a culture and its financial system. He does so with a clear eyed balance and sense of moderation. Iceland, as Boyes points out, is a uniquely problematic economy because the home population is miniscule, hardly more than a typical small American city, especially relative to the gross area of the island surface, which is forbiddingly rough, not conducive at all to agriculture. The economic aspects of Iceland are naturally limited to an unusual resource mix, fisheries and aluminum smelters primarily. The only other more abstract resource Iceland posseses is its geo-strategic position near the arctic where it serves as an ideal forward base for either the United States or the (former) Soviet Union. On the cultural side of the equation, the Icelandic system is uniquely ancient, heavily intermarried and obsessed with family trees, often dating back to the 10th century. This deeply rootbound system has produced a tiny, self absorbed elite that has traditionally held controlling interest in pretty much any and all Icelandic industry that matters. As Boyes details here, with globalization, there would be an inevitable collision between the condensed, inward looking traditional system and the rise of the Neoliberal model of open borders and free capital flows. At first, this seemed like a magical elixir had been discovered which could transform the static, engrained world of customary relations and limited horizons into a delerious, fantasy Iceland of cutting edge hipness, rather as if Iceland had take a quantum leap from being the ultimate backwater to the very model of the new economy. The less romantic reality appear to have been that Iceland was both seduced into believing things about itself that could not possibly be true, as a model of sustainable growth, and Iceland's far more cynical investor class lit on the idea of using Iceland's banking system as a way of systematically looting not only the citizens of Iceland, but more, depositors in the EU who could be tempted into parting with their savings, their retirement funds, and entire community investment projects. When the fantasy imploded into a cloud of volcanic dust, so did many billions of gullible foreign investment. It sounded not unlike many of the tales recounted by Charles McKay in his classic work Extrordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same. Boyes then notes, most interestingly, that right before the great collapse, a large percentage of Iceland's baking system's capital base was spirited off to the tax haven island of Tortola in a flurry of shell corporation asset shifting. It would have been excellent if Boyes could have expanded on exactly how much was wired out of the country, on who's authority, to the sunny island of Tortola. Because if this claim holds up to scrutiny, there would have been a much greater element of foreknowledge and premeditation than the bankers allowed. Needless to say, the charming nation of Iceland to this day remains embroiled in exactly the profoundly dysfunctional system that led up to to the denoument, one day saying it will honor its deposit guarantees, and the next day vetoing them. Quelle surprise. Boyes book is essential reading for anyone considering a career in international business or developing nation finance, and probably should be a required text in American business schools as well. There is much to learn from this remarkable cautionary tale.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fast-paced tale of how Iceland's economy melted,
This review is from: Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (Hardcover)
Most people aren't very familiar with Iceland, an isolated, homogenous, near-Arctic island. Now, thanks to Roger Boyes's wonderfully told tale of its financial collapse, readers can learn what happened to the economy, politics and culture of this unusual, mostly-frozen nation. Iceland was the unlikely first victim of the 2008 global financial collapse - the actual canary in the coal mine. Its financial excesses, cronyism and poor governance serve as a microcosm of the problems facing the largest capitalist nations. Boyes's financial case study flows like a novel. He is unafraid to draw biting conclusions from his detailed presentation: here, villains are villains, greed is greed, names are named. This fast-moving story puts the global fiscal meltdown into perspective. getAbstract rates this as important reading for anyone who seeks insight into the 2008-2009 international economic crisis, which began in this lone, cold outpost and then burst into global flames.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
