tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post3404610171840060559..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: What bank 'deregulation' really means. The case of IcelandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-33910068235260198552009-09-03T11:05:14.645-04:002009-09-03T11:05:14.645-04:00Barkley
Yes. I have a sense that something is abo...Barkley<br />Yes. I have a sense that something is about to break and it's not just in Iceland.<br /><br />shag,<br />The Murdoch and Fairfax press are still busy lauding praise on Australia's continuing economic bubble. Much hooflalah, for instance, about the multi-billion dollar deal done between (what we are told) is Australia and China over natural gas. The reality is that Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell own ALL of this large field, of the Western Australian coastline. They are part of a network of foreign transnationals selling off up to 20% of Australia's liquid natural gas (LNG) supplies when Australia is home to only 2% of the worlds LNG resources.<br /><br />These are the invisible bubbles; The quickly depleting resource bases around the world.Myrtle Blackwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07427043367624101075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-87613648403256206702009-09-03T06:29:57.257-04:002009-09-03T06:29:57.257-04:00I remember back in my grammar school days (late &#...I remember back in my grammar school days (late '30s, early '40s) learning that Iceland should have been named Greenland and Greenland should have been named Iceland to reflect their true climate conditions.<br /><br />So it was in 2001 by deregulation that Iceland finally prospered after so many years of glacial economic growth. This lasted about 7+ years. Perhaps the bubble was frozen to keep it from popping earlier.<br /><br />Growing up in the Boston area (where I continue to reside), I grew up with many Irish Americans and learned much of the travails in Ireland going back to the potato famine and that continued to bring Irish to America until just a few years ago when many returned to Ireland to enjoy its thriving economy that was subsidized by favorable tax arrangements attracting corporations to establish operations there. Much of the credit was attributable, so the story goes, to the quality of eduction in Ireland even during the bad economic times; that the Irish workforce was so well educated, compared to other countries, that it was natural that Ireland would prosper. Alas, the Blarney Bubble has burst. So now the stories are that many are leaving Ireland to return to the US for jobs. The Celtic Tiger turned out to be just another pussycat.<br /><br />Over my lifetime (I just turned 79), there have been many success stories of nations turning things around and prospering. Some might have attributed this to globalization and free markets, and how well they work. It was not just Iceland and Ireland. Think of Asian nations that were thriving. (Some still may be.) It seems that these success stories get quite a bit of press and create quite a bit of ethnic pride. Perhaps that press helps to inflate the bubbles. (Think of the business books of just a few short years ago lauding corporate success stories only to see many of them fail. Perhaps a worthwhile book project would be to focus on such books and tell us what happened to those once successful corporations - and the authors of those books.) Perhaps Joseph Schumpeter's creative destructionism applies to nations as well as to businesses.Shag from Brooklinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07312591102812315460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-9604216334771667632009-09-02T11:32:33.553-04:002009-09-02T11:32:33.553-04:00The latest reports out of Iceland are that the rub...The latest reports out of Iceland are that the rubber is about to hit the road. The Icelandic public is going to be confronted with having to pay the bills for the debt agreement Iceland has made with UK and Netherlands, and they may well balk when they see it. The current government may fall, which has both anti-EU and pro-EU factions within it, which may put the politicians back into power that brought on the whole mess.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.com