Comments by "Halfdan Ingolfsson" (@Halli50) on "TLDR News EU" channel.

Good point. Iceland and Panama are assets the western powers don't want to lose (Iceland's location and Panama's canal).
2
@ameyas7726 , not really. Iceland is cool, not cold year around (estreme weather sometimes, sure, but we Nordics have a saying: There is no bad weather, only insufficient clothing). You can dress up to compensate for for cool weather, but there are limits to how you can "undress" for really hot weather. I once heard a story about a professor at a US midwest university (Oklahoma, I think) that traveled to Iceland and decided to relocate to Iceland when he retired. His reasoning: I come from a place where the summers could be +35°C and humid (he was an educated man and able to think in diverse units) and winters could be -25°C. Iceland is perfect, summer temperatures are 10-20°C and you rarely have short spells of lower than -5°C in winter. Abundant hot springs provide heating (and hot tubs), the people are nice - and then it went on about interesting geology, affordable health care etc. Given the calamities in the US - heatwaves and extreme wildfires BEFORE the wildfire season even begins, hurricanes and tornados, not to mention the botched pandemic response (look up the US vs. Icelandic COVID response and results), I think the professor made a comfortable bet.
2
@joey199412 , true - Iceland copied the US for a while, letting irresponsible financiers a free run, all within the rules and regulations of the EU. Unlike many other countries, however, the Icelandic government had no obligation to "save" the Banksters, and actually jailed a sizeable portion of them when their sheenanigans were exposed. The banksters were rewarded with a bailout in ALL other countries, where they were too big to fail! I our case, the banksters were fortunately too big to save, they were simply allowed to go bust rather than saddle the Icelandic population with their debt for decades to come (we had a conservative/centrist/corrupt covernment at the time that really WANTED to go down that road, but it was overthrown in the "pots-and-pans" revolution). Many people with money to burn (e.g. in the Netherlands and the UK) fell for the "lucrative" Icesave con. Iceland's initial response was to shelter individual small-scale depositors and even if it took some years to devolve the assets of the failed banks, most (if not all) individual depositor got their capital back. The only ones that really (and deservedly) got shafted were the big-time speculators and hedge funds that had been setting up to lure Iceland into a debt trap so they could take over and exploit our resaurces. If they are the "financial institutions" you refer to, you can join them where the sun does not shine.
2
Life will be difficult for Russians outside Russia for a long while, in most cases unfairly but in some cases correctly so. The problem: No one can trust that any given Russian individual is not a Putin operative, in the worst cases the "push people out of high-rise windows" variety. This is no doubt by Putin's design, to make it difficult for Russians to escape his clutches. Even when Putin is dead and gone, the corrupt infrastructure will still be in place, with any number of similar despots queuing up to take his place. Russia pissed away it's chance of becoming properly democratic in the 1990s and it is crystal clear that it will take decades, for any significant reform to take any meaningful hold. Until then, the Russian nation is doomed to be serfs to whatever elites may be in power at any given time.
1
@predabot__6778 Perhaps because desperate immigrants are the only ones willing to accept 'Murican-style starving wages? The way the tourism industry is allowed to get away with blatant exploitation of helpless workers is a blemish on Icelandic society.
1
The scary bit: Whoever the politician, the average voter simply has to face the fact that ALL politicians are liars, cheats, purveyors of untruths! The only thing a voter can do is to follow his/her conviction and hope for the best. The Czech elections may well be it's saving grace - or it might be the beginning of a descent into an Orban or Erdogan-like descent into fascism. Only time will tell. Disregard what the newly-elected president is SAYING, watch carefully what he will be DOING!
1
Austria and Switzerland are surrounded by once-burned, twice-shy countries that serve as buffer zones for them. Now that Putin's Russia has reared it's ugly true self with it's brutal invasion of Ukraine, a LOT of countries are rethinking their security arrangements. Finland and Sweden appear to have made up their minds, but what can you say about "freebies" like Switzerland, Ireland and Austria? A whole host of surrounding countries will have to be overrun by whatever aggressor you can imagine (Russia, China, you name it) before their own borders are threatened. Why should they waste precious tax money on military matters when they are living in a padded, protected environment? Then again, what could Ireland do if Putin decided that it would do nicely as a Russian outpost in the Atlantic? Ireland is in the same precarious situation as Ukraine, not a member of any defense alliance and thus an easy target! Do not ever take anything for granted!
1
Does it matter to us everyday Icelanders if our natural resources (mainly fishing) are exploited by local Oligarchs, special friends and contributors to the "Independence" (Capitalist) and the "Progressive" (Corruption) parties or the EU? Probably not...
1
I have always considered Finland's and Sweden's neutrality as appeasement and courtesy to paranoid Russia, by treaty in the case of Finland and by tradition by Sweden. Historically, Russia has a valid argument to be paranoid after both Napoleon and Hitler invaded with horrible consequences, but times have changed. An unhinged Putin is virtually ensuring that both countries will join NATO in the imminent future. Putin is shooting himself in both feet AND his bollocks by his actions! Putin will NOT survive this, the only question is how much pain and suffering will be caused before he is out of power.
1
When The Republic of Iceland became a founding member of NATO, the world was in a flux and there were a number of Soviet admirers (nominal Communists) among the population at the time. They were very vocal and violence-prone, much like the noisy and violence-prone right-wing extremists / racists / fascists (whatchamacallit) in the US today (although without all the guns). This political view slowly faded out in Iceland over the years - as did outright capitalism, and we now have a rather benign mix of political parties that can all be social-democratic, but with slightly different right/left/special interests leanings. All in all, we got off easy during these turbulent times.
1