Word: icelanders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...employees. In 2005, Pétursdóttir built a gleaming $4 million factory, and she has plans for a $7 million expansion to keep up with the growing demand among health-minded consumers for omega-3 fatty acids. But financing these ambitious plans may prove problematic, with Iceland mired in its first recession since 1992 and interest rates at 15.5% - the highest in Europe. "Our banks aren't so keen on lending right now," she says. "It's not a good time to chase money...
...latest flashpoint in the global financial crisis, Iceland is nursing a familiar sort of economic pain in a typically cool way. Over the past two years, the country's banks enjoyed extraordinary growth by borrowing heavily on international capital markets, leading Iceland to rack up a $2.7 billion current-account deficit, equivalent to 16% of its GDP; the comparable figure even in the notoriously indebted U.S. is only 5%. In January banks worldwide clamped down on loans in response to the global credit crunch, and investors began to worry that Icelandic banks had leveraged themselves too aggressively. Rumors swirled that...
...Icelanders - from cab drivers who recite economic statistics to Prime Minister Geir Haarde who travels the world calming investors' nerves - the hysteria appears overblown. "What you'd expect to see out of these windows is fire," says Finnur Oddsson, managing director of the Iceland Chamber of Commerce. Instead, he peers out at a $138 million construction project at the University of Reykjavik. Iceland, he points out, has been in this situation before. In early 2006, credit agencies criticized Icelandic banks for their lack of transparency and reliance on international capital markets. Analysts' opprobrium drove the krona down by 25% against...
This time around, the government and the banks are doing everything they can to dismantle the caricature of Iceland as a victim of its own excess, and instead portray it as the target of a financial conspiracy. Prime Minister Haarde has accused international hedge funds of deliberately spreading rumors to create a banking scare, so they could profit by "hook or crook" from wagers that the currency or stocks would tumble. In April, Iceland's Financial Supervisory Authority launched an investigation into an unconfirmed story that back in January, hedge-fund managers had hatched a plan to bet against...
...LazyTown has gone on to win millions of young fans around the world, but its impact has been felt strongest in Scheving's native Iceland (pop. 300,000). In 2004, a Sportacus-themed healthy eating drive saw fruit and vegetable sales skyrocket by 22%. The country's Surgeon General has even credited the show with halting the rise of childhood obesity. " LazyTown is the most brilliant tax-saving phenomenon," Iceland's president, Olafur Grimsson, told TIME. "The chance of these children developing obesity-related diseases - which place a burden on the health system - has been greatly reduced...