Canada ready to discuss letting Iceland share currency

In an interesting turn of events, it appears that Canada is ready to discuss letting Iceland use the Canadian Dollar as its internal currency.

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2012/03/02/canada-ready-to-discuss-letting-iceland-use-its-dollar/

On the one hand immediate thoughts turn to the consequence of Europe permitting Greece to adopt the Euro as its national currency, and fears that Iceland might become to Canada what Greece has become to Europe. But Iceland is not Greece.

Iceland has a tiny population compared to Canada, and an industrious workforce, that has been self sufficient these last thousand years. While there perhaps might need to be checks and balances on borrowing, I don't see why including Iceland in the block that uses the Canadian dollar, should alarm anyone more than are already alarmed by the ability of each of the provinces of Canada to rack up provincial debt on that same Canadian dollar.

So presuming that Icelanders were shopping for a currency, what advantages would they derive from employing the Canadian dollar as their currency. Since the obvious alternative is the Euro, right now the Canadian dollar appears more robust. Buying into the Euro would implicitly mean buying into the bailout of Greece, and potentially other European nations with similar difficulties. Long term, I expect the Canadian dollar to continue to rise against the US Dollar.

The US is horribly over-extended, without seemingly the political will to address its deficit. As is said jokingly of the US, "a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money". In addition the US dollar derived much of its historic economic strength from being the defacto reserve currency which until recently nations tended to horde against some future rainy day. The days of the US dollar being a trusted currency given its recent collapse in value are over.


Love to know what Icelanders think about the preferred Icelandic currency.

Icelandic Economists argue for the Canadian Dollar over the Euro

cf:
http://www.afponline.org/Article_Detail.aspx?id=10737419422

Why Iceland should be in the news but isn't

On balance Iceland's better off being below peoples radar. So for that matter is Canada.

http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/728.1?frommailing=1

U.S. to host 2011 World Press Freedom Day

The venue of Washington DC for this three day conference from May 1st to 3rd 2011 is Orwellian. The notion that the US supports Press Freedom is entirely discredited by recent events, and UNESCO should not be lending credence to US claims that it does, by allowing the US to host this event.

I am championing the suggestion that Iceland would be a much better venue for this conference than the US, and hope that UNESCO which organises this conference and others involved in its production agree.

Iceland has recently enacted progressive legislation that provides sweeping protection of freedom of the press, since Iceland following its own domestic problems now sees the merit in having the media better able to report truths, before falsehoods undermine nation states. Iceland is accessible from both Europe and North America, and I imagine that most attenders would be far more comfortable and far safer meeting in Iceland, than incurring all of the risks associated with being a journalist visiting the US these days.

U.S. Department of State Press Announcement

World Press Freedom Day Facebook Discussion

Anti Wikileaks lies and propaganda

World running out of new places to fish

The world's fishing industry is fast running out of new ocean fishing grounds to exploit as it depletes existing areas through unsustainable harvesting practices, according to a study published Thursday.

Scientific American

Icesave costs Iceland less than expected

A draft of an agreement between Icelandic, British and Dutch authorities on the dispute regarding Landsbanki’s Icesave deposits payback scheme has been completed and presented to parties of interest.

Vilhjálmur Egilsson, managing director of the Confederation of Icelandic Employer (SA), said the draft indicates that the Icelandic state will contribute much less to Icesave than originally expected, possibly ISK 60 billion (USD 532 million, EUR 391 million).

Iceland Review

Love you forever confidentially

Former Prime Minister of Iceland Davíd Oddsson and Foreign Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson were unaware as to the purpose of the list of the “coalition of the willing”—nations supporting the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003. The publication of the list came as a surprise; they thought it would be confidential.

Oddsson and Ásgrímsson decided to place Iceland’s name on the list two days before the invasion began. Tómas Heidar, an international law specialist at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs considered the invasion illegal and notified the ministers of his opinion the day the invasion began, Fréttabladid reports.

Light is shed on the events leading up to Iceland’s declaration of support in 67 documents, almost 300 pages, made public by the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

The documents confirm that the decision was made by two persons, Oddsson and Ásgrímsson. The decision was made without consultancy with the Althingi parliament or the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Iceland Review

Alien Landscape Alien People

The Icelandic Alien Society felt compelled to issue a statement after the interview with Mayor of Reykjavík Jón Gnarr on RÚV’s news magazine Kastljós on Monday that he is not an alien, contrary to his claims.

The statement reads that although some of the mayor’s behavioral patterns and his physical appearance might indicate that he is from outer space, the society’s closer investigation into the matter has concluded that he is, in fact, an earthly creature.

The society concluded that Gnarr has both a social security number and human parents and a well-known, albeit dubious, history. Gnarr appears to have “simply the same political sloppiness syndrome as most other third-class politicians who cannot do much else than to go back on their promises.”

“These factors do not characterize most of the aliens who have visited the earth, whom we know only by their good deeds,” the society’s statement reads.

Iceland Review