Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island

by Roger Boyes

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1608190188
• ISBN13: 9781608190188
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Lessons In Human Action

This book is one of the best and most concise reckonings of a nation's financial missteps that I have read to date. Although not particularly written as a commentary on human action and/or behavior, this book shines a rather grim light upon how the masses can be swallowed up by the pride and hum-buggery of just a handful of people whose interests are not aligned with the good of all beings. It's shocking. The author makes it very easy for the reader to follow all of the characters by name as the tragedy of Iceland slowly unfolds in his story. I believe he was able to do this by explaining the Icelandic method of naming children and lineage. It was very wise to explain this in the beginning of the book, which the author did. I highly recommend this book, which paints a very clear and dismal portrait that shows the reader exactly how greed can consume us all, even though that greed might be pursued by only a handful of people. It is like a highly infectious virus.

Fast-paced tale of how Iceland's economy melted

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.

A powerfully illuminating analysis of a catastrophe

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

Makes many things clear

If your desire is to understand the recent economic difficulty, this book is a hidden gem. When an attempt is made to understand that economic and banking crisis in the United States and Europe, there are simply too many personalities, institutions, governments, and other players. Iceland, on the other hand, is a sovereign nation that has its own currency, financial regulators, and central bank. It is, however, a country of about 300,000. The number of variables are reduced to a level that can be understood. Thankfully, the author spends enough time setting the stage through discussion of Icelandic history, perspective, and personality. The crisis days become far more understandable when viewed through that context. The author then relates many of these mistakes to the similar mistakes that took place in the US and Europe. This is an excellent book!