Via Hilzoy at the Washington Monthly: What the hell happened to Iceland?
Back away from the Icelandic economy and you can’t help but notice something really strange about it: the people have cultivated themselves to the point where they are unsuited for the work available to them. All these exquisitely schooled, sophisticated people, each and every one of whom feels special, are presented with two mainly horrible ways to earn a living: trawler fishing and aluminum smelting. […] At the dawn of the 21st century, Icelanders were still waiting for some task more suited to their filigreed minds to turn up inside their economy so they might do it.
Enter investment banking.
It’s wonderfully-written, and fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way. Also, bizarrely, Hilzoy got it in turn via Felix Salmon, who I realised a few months ago was simultaneously a) a professional journalist with a lot of useful things to say about the economy, and b) the guy I knew at Glasgow University when we were both students writing for the student newspaper who was a right dick.
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