Iceland Compared/Contrasted With United States

How will the US's future economic challenges compare to those of Iceland's?
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Greetings to you, American friends of liberty!

I don't know if anybody will see this comment since it's a week or two since anybody commented, but here goes.

I'm an Icelandic libertarian. A few of my friends, who are also libertarians, recently published a 50 page booklet on libertarianism and the failings of the leftist government that we're distributing everywhere we can (into the schools, cafés and other public places). So far, people are loving it!

We even flew to the US to interview Dr. Paul, and the six-page interview with him forms the centerpiece of our booklet! Maybe you can ask him about it sometime.

Things are certainly not catastrophic in Iceland. They're pretty bad, but that's mostly because of the socialist takeover last spring (we had elections since the crisis, before the term was over). The country is heavily in debt, but thankfully the collapse was only a financial one: Not a total economic collapse. 80% of homes are doing just fine - the other 20% (probably less) are dealing with mortgages (that were financed in foreign currency) that have now exploded into space, but nobody is waiting in line for soup as far as I know.

Our infrastructure is still fine, exports have risen dramatically due to the depreciation of the currency, and so the trade deficit has turned into a big surplus.

On the negative side, the socialist government has raised taxes and is running a big deficit, not seeming to be able to comprehend the crisis.

But then again, if they understood how to deal with a crisis, that would mean they understood economics, and thus would't be socialists (which they are), so they don't.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that there are active libertarians in Iceland, although we desparately lack leadership. We don't have a figure like Dr. Paul here, and proper libertarians like myself are pretty much considered a fringe group, since the "farthest-to-the-right" party still advocates a mixed-economy Scandinavian model.

But there is always hope! As long as people are willing to fight for freedom, there is always hope.

Wishing you good luck,

Thorarinn Sigurdsson