Irrelevant Flat Blackening

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Good Lord! You must have an enormous current account deficit.

Actually, I don't know whether we do or not. The financial workings here are particularly opaque in that they are mostly driven by a few dozen huge conglomerates that are owned by Icelandic people but operate around the world. We're listed with a current account deficit of $-2.932.000.000; but those are 2006 numbers and I have no idea of the accuracy. I doubt it, actually.

I know that our governmental debt has gone from astronomical to proportionally miniscule in the past years. I know that our balance of trade used to be and probably still is massively negative in terms of goods, but we may have a surplus in terms of services. What I have no idea of is how the conglomerates are structured in their finances and how much effect it has. I know that several of them are much wealthier than the Icelandic government and own assets abroad worth several times our current deficiet, so the effect could be substantial.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I hope that you have a parachute.

From what I understand, the banks and venture capitalists that drive our expansion show no sign of instability or slowing down. Quite simply, we're small enough so that as long as a few key companies here do well, we'll do quite well.