Comments on: About that Vanity Fair article

By: alda

alda — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:18:08 +0000

I am absolutely aghast at some of the comments I have received on this post. I’ll say no more.

By: Stan

Stan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:30:59 +0000

“Stan, how about a second-string actor becoming president of the U.S.?”

I assume Jon is referring to Ronald Reagan. While I dislike his conservative politics, he did not jump directly from actor to president. He was elected governor of California and re-elected before running and elected president for 2 terms. Hardly dilettantism. He had a track record in politics and administration and that is why people voted for him.

“Denial is not a river in Egypt.”

By: hank

hank — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:14:06 +0000

bollocks the lot of it

By: Blank Xavier

Blank Xavier — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:16:11 +0000

Alda wrote:
> And of course the media completely failed in its duty to analyze and
> inform

They have no such duty. They are simply publications which people have decided to produce and others to buy. To imagine there is such a duty and that it should or is being carried out well is to blind oneself, by imagining a safeguard which does not exist.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:00:01 +0000

Stan, how about a second-string actor becoming president of the U.S.?
James, how about millions of people believing in the infallibility of a guy in a pointy hat and red shoes in Italy?

By: James

James — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:52:56 +0000

Reputable studies report that 185,000 Icelanders believe in elves and 15 million Americans believe they have been abducted by aliens. This is not a coincidence: I firmly believe that each elf has abducted over 80 Americans.

By: Stan

Stan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:10:12 +0000

First, the Range Rover “fiction”. Lewis did not say that Rovers were blown up in broad daylight. He did not even know what the sound, two consecutive booms, was. He was in bed, it was night and he heard two booms. That is what he wrote. He further wrote than it was an Icelander who told him about Range Rovers being blown up! That is also what he wrote and it could be accurate that an Icelander actually told him that. There is also good reason why one car on fire could make several booms from fuel in different containers (engine, tank, etc.) exploding in sequence.

Now as for the fishing captain. Why is it any more improbable that a fishing captain would be able to work as an investment adviser in a bank than that a grocer or someone who had earned millions from dealing in the Russian booze business could own and control a whole banks? Or that a veterinarian…. it could go on and on.

Also, Lewis is known as a financial journalist primarily for his books and his writing for the New York Times.

We might not like the message, so let’s attack the messenger? Inaccurately…

There was a lot in there that could have been discussed and, I fear, will need to be discussed.

By: RK in Los Angeles

RK in Los Angeles — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:04:46 +0000

So glad that someone finally mentioned the Bjarni Brynjolfs thing. I remember him back in the days when I still lived in the “old country” and I do believe he was working for Mannlíf then. The photo caption says he is a fly fish guide, yet he is dressed as a fisherman on a boat. Fly fish guide is an upper glass thing, fisherman is very working class hero. I say this tongue in cheek to match the hype of the article, but this is nevertheless true.

Re. The Icelandic stereotype: Yes Icelanders believe in elves. Not garden gnomes but more like ethereal being that live in a world that intersects somehow with ours. I personally don’t, but hey – a lot of people in this world believe that an old fart with a white beard created the UNIVERSE! And that a guy named Jesus was born to a virgin. Not only that, but just 5 years ago 50% of the US still believed their president was good enough to re-elect. So you know, I don’t see what the problem is with Icelanders and Elves.

By: tk

tk — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:39:04 +0000

Alda,

On a lighter note, there’s a short piece in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “Rise and fall of Iceland’s pizza trailblazer” (http://tinyurl.com/crpukw), about Olafur Jonsson, who introduced New York-style pizza into Iceland.

– tk

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:38:28 +0000

“I find it very improbable that a fisherman could just walk into a bank without any training and become an adviser”

A fair comment, but not in itself proof that Lewis’ story isn’t true. A large portion of the “work” done in rating US equity stocks for market valuation is done by young men and women in their 20s. They typically know models but don’t have industry experience. It doesn’t take too many years before people from this cadre of MBA holders start to get positions in which they trade enormous amounts of money… and aside from a background in financial modeling, I don’t know that they’d be any worse at it than the captain of a fishing vessel.

I shall be interested to see if anyone is able to verify the story and the identity of the man cited by Lewis.