The economic crisis send out its ripples, knocks down its first dominoes, and the rich fat cats who thought they were too far away to be threatened, are starting to raise their heads and start smelling something rotten heading their way. First it was Iceland, now it’s Greece, and soon it may be bigger fish in much bigger lakes like Italy and Spain. The problem is always the same: whole countries live beyond their means, run up big debts on credit and fall apart when the sleazy chaps who convinced them to take out cheap loans, ask for a payback.  Iceland lived in a fantasy world of fake wealth in this bizarre ritual and the streets of Reykjavik rumbled with the weight of oversized  cars bought on non-existent money. The average Reykjavik household had 3 cars, and more than 20,000 cars were imported in the year before the banking system collapsed in 3 days only 4 years ago. This year 2,000 cars are coming in. But Icelanders have learned to live with catastrophes: hunger winters, volcanic eruptions, whatever. When asked how he was doing in the midst of the debacle, my brother Doug’s Icelandic pal had a quick reply: “Don’t worry about us, we know how to fish and raise potatoes”. And lo and behold it is the Icelandic fishery that has actually prospered in terrible economic times, as the fishing fleet never stopped going out into dangerous waters, still under Icelandic control after the cod war of the 1970s after the fleet turned away invading British warships, and provided a solid economic base for an economic recovery, even for the gamblers who had  lost in the economic games of the mid-2000s.
Now it is Greece’s turn to pay the price of spending too liberally on the basis of phoney money. Just as in Iceland (and in all the countries that will be hit next) it is the fat cats who will be able to find an escape hatch and the poor suckers who have tried to make an honest hard-earned wage who will find that their savings have disappeared along with their jobs. Like Iceland Greece has tremendous resources in its saplendid setting and matchless history. Come on guys, get it together, start planting those potatoes or whatever grows best, send out the fleet, and get those workers who are ready to roll up their sleeves back on the job.