Ross Beaty should have stuck with operating in Latin America

 Who got more stage appeal? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen

After all, this neck of the woods has a long history of doffing the cap to the North and not asking too many questions about Environmental or Health & Safety practices of North American companies. But he had to go and try his luck in a place like Iceland, didn't he? Here come two excerpts from this report yesterday, the big Karaoke starts at 3pm this afternoon. Happy Twelfth Night (or Threttándinn), Ross!

Björk Starts Karaoke Marathon for Iceland’s Nature

"A karaoke marathon and song festival dedicated to Iceland’s nature as part of Björk’s campaign to win back the country’s natural resources will begin in the Nordic House in Reykjavík at 3 pm tomorrow, Threttándinn, which is the official Last Day of Christmas.

 ...........................

"Björk said in the interview that Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir had declared that if 15 percent of voters (approximately 35,000 people) sign a petition revoking Canadian Magma Energy’s (MXY.to) acquisition agreement of Icelandic energy company HS Orka, it cannot be ignored by the authorities.
"More than 20,000 people have signed the petition already and Björk is certain that the remaining signatures will be gathered during the karaoke marathon. The petition demands: "Icelandic natural resources shall be owned and governed by the public."
“For 100 years good people protected our natural resources and public interest. In the outvasion period the sale of natural resources and irresponsible access to them began. Now it is time to stop that unfortunate development,” the press release declares."

Iceland, Ireland and Argentina

Krugman today looks at the developments of Iceland versus Ireland post-crisis and notes that Iceland, despite its famous financial crash'n'burn moment not that long ago, is doing better than Ireland. 

What’s going on here? In a nutshell, Ireland has been orthodox and responsible — guaranteeing all debts, engaging in savage austerity to try to pay for the cost of those guarantees, and, of course, staying on the euro. Iceland has been heterodox: capital controls, large devaluation, and a lot of debt restructuring — notice that wonderful line from the IMF, above, about how “private sector bankruptcies have led to a marked decline in external debt”. Bankrupting yourself to recovery! Seriously.

And guess what: heterodoxy is working a whole lot better than orthodoxy.

Well yeah, cos as far as we down here are concerned all this is just a repeat performance of Argentina 1999 to 2005. In the first part of that period Argentina did what Ireland is doing, listened attentively to The IMF, did what it was told, rationalized, cut and got all austere. The result of listening to the self-important dumbasses in suits was the financial implosion of late '01 and the wholesale rape of the country's savings by foreign financial institutions. Then 2002 onwards, the country did what Iceland did, gave the IMF the royal bird and did everything it should have done in the first place. The result can be seen in that chart of the day today, a couple of posts down. 

That Iceland volcanic ash cloud flight delay thingy

Totally OT, but hey...it's Friday. I thought I'd share a mail sent to your humble scribe by his brother this morning (my main man dude you rock). Here's the whole thing:

Best quote I've read, this is from BBC news website.

"Kerry Stothart, of Maidstone, is stuck in Belgium after being redirected there on their way back from Atlanta.

"She said: "We are a party of 10 people including four children, one diabetic, one with ADHD and Aspergers, and a blind lady. This is an absolute nightmare."

I think the cloud may only be part of the problem. No?