Iceland is steamed

Its economic meltdown, and the violent reaction of its people, may be echoed worldwide.

By Rebecca Solnit
February 8, 2009

What really worried them, I suspect, was not that people would throng the streets, or even that those people might demand radical social and political change. The real concern was that the rioters might achieve some of their demands.

Take the example of Iceland, the first but surely not the last country to go bankrupt.

Iceland's currency, the krona, has collapsed

Iceland's boom created a new class of the super-wealthy

It was government-led recklessness and deregulation. The public tolerated privatization and giveaways of everything from their medical histories and DNA to their fishing industry and wilderness, and a host of subsidiary indignities.

British citizens' Internet savings accounts and used anti-terrorism laws to seize the bank's assets, incidentally reclassifying Iceland as a terrorist nation

"Eggs were being thrown at the Central Bank.