How Iceland Emerged From Its Deep Freeze
After Iceland’s three largest banks fell in the space of three days, the currency collapsed, the stock market fell 95 percent and nearly every business on the island was bankrupt.
Short-term suffering followed, but today, Iceland is buzzing: Unemployment is 4 percent, the International Monetary Fund is predicting 4.1 percent G.D.P. growth for 2015, and tourism is booming.
.. As real wages fell 11 percent from 2007 to 2010, the government did not take a hacksaw to social services, but instead raised taxes and also offered debt relief to the country’s mortgage holders.
And Iceland did what no other developed country has seemed particularly eager to do: It jailed a bunch of bankers.