Posts Tagged ‘Global Community’

Berlingske: Lack Of Humility And Sense of Reality

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

It is self explanatory that there is not much sympathy worldwide for a country which first behaved irresponsibly and then tried to export its problems to other countries.

Like other countries which have run their economies into the ground – including Greece as a good example -  Iceland must take responsibility for itself. So even if the Icelanders voted no and every last one of them had banged pots and pans in the streets of Reykjavik, the global community has to remain steadfast. If the Icelanders can not agree with the Dutch and the British about payment terms, then they naturally can not expect further loans from either the IMF, the Nordic countries or progression in the EU talks.

It must be noted for fairness sakes that the Icelanders have underlined that their position is not one of not paying, but about the details. And Netherlands and the UK have listened. When Iceland voted no anyhow, the two countries had already offered a better deal, which the Icelandic leadership had already rejected as not good enough. It does not bear witness of either humility or sense of reality.

From Denmark’s Berlingske Tidende (in Danish)

Berlingske noting that Icelanders seem to lack the understanding that actions have consequences.

Related posts:

  1. What Have You Done?
  2. It Came To The Point Where I Saw No Sense In Continuing To Pay
  3. A Farewell Letter – I am escaping to a different reality that is more FAIR to me

McDonald’s Leaving Iceland, The Village Idiots Of The World

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Some people think it is absolutely brilliant that McDonald’s is packing up its Big Macs and leaving Iceland.

They fail to see the big picture.

Crap burgers and awesome milkshakes aside, an operating McDonald’s in a country is a sign of active participation in a global community.

It is surely no coincidence that McDonald’s arrived in Iceland at the dawn of Iceland’s participation in the EEA. And it is surely no coincidence that McDonald’s is leaving in wake of the economic crisis.

While some might see the golden arches as an evil part of globalization, the larger implications should not be ignored. Having some uniformity worldwide is beneficial to compare the real economic and political situations of countries.

The McDonald’s Theory of conflict prevention

What is it about McDonald’s that creates peace? The simple answer is that a country that has stabilized to the point where someone is willing to invest close to a million dollars per store in a franchise operation is very unlikely to be a threat to its neighbors, or have neighbors who are a threat to it. McDonald’s restaurants are owned by the mother corporation, or by individual franchisees. Neither one is interested in seeing riots, corruption nor banditry destroy their investment. American towns and other countries have to earn their McDonald’s.

The Big Mac Index

The Big Mac Index is published by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries.

The peace theory has been under fire, pardon the pun but the Big Mac Index has been indicative of economic trends. So Ronald McDonald’s decision to give up on Iceland is actually a sign of how royally messed up things have become. Some people are talking about positive effects on culinary culture in Iceland.

But the thing is that we didn’t chase McDonald’s out of the country, McDonald’s decided to leave us. If it had been the other way around then maybe we’d be seen in a similar positive light as Jose Bové and the French farmers who have protested the restaurant’s ethics and effects on cusine. But McDonald’s packing its bags leaves us as the village idiots of the world.

They just don’t see it feasible in the long run to conduct business in this country.

And that is no laughing matter, whether you like their burgers or not.

Note: McDonald’s in Iceland is a franchise operated restaurant. We might just be witnessing the classic case of an Icelandic business so in debt that it must re-organize or die. We will see whether a new player sees the opportunity to bring the golden arches back into the market. With import costs and tariffs the way they are, and McDonald’s importing most of their supplies it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

See also:

Iceland is so messed that McDonald’s is giving up and going home

McDonald’s closes in Iceland after krona collapses

Iceland to be McDonald’s free

Wikileaks: No We Will Not Hide Kaupthing’s Dirty Laundry

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

No. We will not assist the remains of Kaupthing, or its clients, to hide its dirty laundry from the global community. Attempts by
Kaupthing or its agents to discover the source of the document in question may be a criminal violation of both Belgium source protection
laws and the Swedish constitution. Who is your US counsel?

Wikileaks answer to Kaupthing

Roskilde Festival gets personal with art project

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

kaupthing_is_center_blackPut a Nobel Prize winner, a renegade artist, and a few thousand music fans who don’t mind rolling around in the mud as their favourite bands play on stage and you’ve got the makings of something special. This year’s Roskilde Festival truly put the ‘human’ into their traditional mix of humanitarian awareness, art and rock music with a unique piece of artwork.
Kristian von Hornsleth, a 46 year-old Danish conceptual artist, came to Roskilde and collected hair and blood samples from 800 volunteers. He will extract their DNA, add it to a collection of other DNA that spans the global community, and place it inside a sculpture that will be deposited in the deepest place of our planet’s ocean next year. Each participant signed a certificate authenticating their DNA.

Called the Deep Storage Project, von Hornsleth has created an angular, futuristic sculpture five metres tall that will be placed in the Mariana Trench 11,000 metres beneath the surface of the ocean. The Mariana Trench is the world’s deepest undersea region, located 200 miles off Guam Island.

The JP news agency says the artist’s goal was to place the DNA of thousands of people from all walks of life deep within the earth. He feels that in a few millennia their DNA will still be intact, while life on the surface on the planet will have changed in ways we can’t even conceive.

“The sculpture looks as it does because it should not resemble something organic – it’s made up of triangles and sharp points. The idea is that 10,000 years from now, when someone sails by with their deep-sea sonar, they’ll see something down there and retrieve it. The people who donated DNA could be regenerated and maybe even come to Roskilde again,” von Hornsleth explained to Danish public broadcaster DR.

http://jp.dk/uknews/article1741555.ece?page=2