Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason. ~Author Unknown

I think the quote of the day says it all.

Maja asked that I give my take on what is happening in Iceland. Well, I guess to put it simply I am just fed up with all of them. The government has done little to nothing ever since it first was aware that the banks were in trouble. The fact that people did not realise 4 years ago that there was something not quite right with Icelandic finances tells me that the folk that were profiting were willing to turn a blind eye to all the dubious and unethical goings on within the finance sector.

Now the government is facing daily protests outside parliament (a situation totally unheard of here) and are basically ignoring it. The leader of the centre left party said that the people that were protesting weren´t representative of Icelanders as a whole.. cough cough - who are they then representative of????

Today the minister for commerce (and banking) resigned. He also called for the sacking of the head of the Financial Services Authority (the people that should have been blowing whistles and prosecuting our rich bank owners) and the board of the FSA has also resigned. - finally someone said that they would take political responsibility so hats off to him. Björgvin is his name and during the crisis he has seemed to be doing his best - but unfortunately he should have been doing something months ago (esp when he was at a meeting in the UK with Darling) anywho, if I want to be cynical then I would say that this is also a very good political move on his part and that he is getting himself ready to take over the leadership of the centre left.

On other matters, both leaders of the coalition have growths, one in the brain (aparently not cancer - but she is undergoing extensive treatment because apparently it keeps growing back and does so at a fast rate) Geir H Haarde our prime minister has been diagnosed with cancer and will be going for some sort of treatment this week. He is not resigning but has said that he will not be leader of the party for the next election. Their combined excuses for not resigning and not calling an immediate election is that it would cause too much instability... again cough cough... have they looked out the window at the hundreds if not thousands shouting for their resignation and saying that the government is useless.

The country- progressive party changed its leadership last week - got in a young bloke who, although he had worked for the party, was not a member until just before the party meeting. He has declared that the progressive party would support the centre left and the left green party should they wish to take control now and rid the parliament of the independence party (rightish and have been in power for far far too long and are also the ones protecting David Oddsson in the central bank - who in my opinion should shoulder a lot of the blame of what has happened here). I think that there is a lot of support for this within the centre left - but the leader and her followers don´t want to give up the coalition.... crazy, Anyway, there will be elections in May - but is that soon enough. Given that protests like the ones taking place at the moment have never happened in Iceland before then I would say that May is not soon enough for change and that it is just a matter of days before the current coalition government fails.

Thats my take on it. I still think that Alda on the icelandweatherreport is the best blog to read on everything that is happening - she is also much closer to the grass roots of what is happening in the capital. We here in the North neither profited from the banks, nor have we been hit as hard (as yet) by the fall of the financial sector.

As the swedish professor at Holar said - Iceland is a very exciting place for academics to study human behaviour under crisis...

In another 3-5 years there will be numerous case studies written in economic, business and sociological texts...