Michael Lewis's excellent article begins to explain how Iceland's instant financiers ruined the country's economy with a reckless regard for financial sustainability. It's a finance lesson for us all--and a sustainability lesson as well.
Wall Street on the Tundra
Iceland's de facto bankruptcy--its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance--resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904?currentPage=1