Juggling Dynamite

“The boom years were an unsustainable feast” on credit. After Iceland allowed its over-levered banks to go bust, the country is moving back to more conventional values and an interest in traditional Nordic ideals like social equality. The model offers hope to other countries who after 5 years of bank bailouts on the public purse, must now admit mistakes and follow Iceland’s lead.

Stefan Olafsson, sociology professor at the University of Iceland, discusses changes in Iceland’s society following the collapse of the economy. Here is a direct link.

This is a trend that makes some rational sense. Could it be that retail investors are increasingly not as dumb as the financial industry has traditionally banked on? Could it be that alternative information from non-mainstream media sources via the internet is helping people to be more aware of real trends in the global economy and less like lambs-to-the-investment-sales-slaughter? Or is it that regular investors are figuring out that the wild west freak show of HFT casino, Central Bank leverage, and insider-front-running that has become public markets is no longer a game worth playing? 13 years into this secular bear in global stock markets, it could also be that under-saved people are feeling their financial vulnerability again as global demand continues to slump and economy after economy tips into the third recession since 2000.

Here is a direct link.

Source: Cory Venable, CMT, Venable Park Investment Counsel Inc.