Posted on 04/07/2010 8:02:03 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Icelanders opt for exile
Anna Margret Bjoernsdottir never thought she would be forced to leave her once wealthy homeland. But taking out a loan in a foreign currency was a disastrous decision.
By Marc Preel, in Mosfellsbaer for AFP
Published: 10:52AM BST 07 Apr 2010
After 18 months of economic upheaval she has decided to join the biggest emigration wave from Iceland in more than a century.
"I just don't see any future here. There isn't going to be any future in this country for the next 20 years, everything is going backwards," lamented the 46-year-old single mother, who plans to move to Norway in June.
The former estate agent who lost her job when Iceland's housing market disintegrated two years ago said that she feared she could soon be forced out of her large house in Mosfellsbaer, around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Reykjavik.
"I don't want to sell it," she said, vowing to "fight to keep" the comfortable wooden dwelling she, her daughter Olavia, their cat, Isolde Tinna, and their dog, Candit the Bandit, have called home since 2004.
Bjoernsdottir is not alone in planning to leave Iceland's economic mess behind and seek a new future abroad. Most people in Reykjavik have someone in their surroundings who has already packed their bags and gone.
Emigration has rapidly picked up speed since the Atlantic island nation's economy crumbled in late 2008, dragged down by the collapse of its major banks. Last year it marked the largest exodus from the country since 1887.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
P!
The United States of America the last stand on Earth and ‘Zero’ is giving it away or destroying it a little bit everyday.
Perhaps we should consider mass immigration to Iceland? At least as a base for our side in the coming conflict, if nohting else. Iceland might be ready to re-think some of the problems with the central-bank led socialist paradigmn that we are all stuck in.
No future for Iceland?
Yep,there’s ain’t no place to run anymore.Perhaps,NZ for
retirees?/
I’d tell not to come to America because we are about to experience the same thing here. Argentina, Greece, Iceland are all good examples of what happens when countries don’t listen to common sense.
Who is Bjorn, and who is the mother of his daughter?
Guam won't capsize, but apparently Iceland can.
Iceland is the last place where the old Germanic custom of dynamic patronymics is used. This woman's father is Bjorn, and he will have a different surname such as 'Eriksen' reflecting his own father's name. The Norwegians did this up until a hundred years ago, and any time you meet a person with a static patronymic such as Johnson or Williamson you can hear the echo of our own Anglo-Saxon past.
Some places make special rules for people of independent means. Hard to see that many Americans (with our collapsing pension systems) are going to qualify for that, though.
Ah yes, Norway, that golden land of opportunity and where McDonald’s for two will run you $50.
More to the point of the article, you said,
"you can hear the echo of our own Anglo-Saxon past."
I am concerned that what is going on in Iceland could very well be occuring to us in a handful of years.
What we can learn from Iceland experience:
1. Taking loans in a foreign currency is a bad idea.
2. In real democratic republics citizens are given a vote
before huge bailouts are given to a small group.
“I just don’t see any future here. There isn’t going to be any future in this country for the next 20 years, everything is going backwards,”
Anyone thinking about leaving the US should check into the immigration policies of the host country. Very few allow foreigners to become gainfully employed. Also, the US is stopping capital at the border. There is now fees (30%) in place just in case you may be trying to dodge your tax liability.
As always, America is the world’s last best hope for freedom.
Hello. We Americans have no place to go. This is, as Reagan said, the last stand for freedom on Earth.
Who is John Galt?
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