Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson

The discussion on Facebook

January 5, 2010

Predictably, social media sites are all aflutter with Icelanders variously expressing their indignation or jubilation. Here are a couple of Facebook statuses that have been making the rounds on my friends list. Gerard van Vliet [best frienf of InDefence] says in Telegraaf that a new opportunity has now opened up. The governments of Iceland and [...]

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iPhones to fund moguls’ debt repayments?

November 25, 2009

Big news everybody:  iPhones have officially landed in Iceland, meaning we can now actually buy them here AND use them without having to hack them first. Apparently iPhones are this year’s Christmas present, or so the phone companies would have us believe. Incidentally, two of the three major telecommunications companies on the Icelandic market are [...]

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The Weather Report has a kreppa boom boom

August 17, 2009

What a crazy, chaotic day! I had a deadline on an assignment and had planned to spend the better part of the day working on that so I could get it sent off in a timely fashion. However, when I opened my email, the first message was from the BBC World Service telling me that [...]

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Russia is our new best friend, redux

July 19, 2009

One piece of news that went largely unnoticed in all the hoopla surrounding the EU accession talks last week was the one about Russia having approved a USD 500 million loan to Iceland. As some of you may recall, talk of a Russian loan first surfaced last year, just as our financial system was beginning [...]

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Just when you think things can’t get any more corrupt … THEY DO!!

July 10, 2009

Apropos the last post, it now transpires that the mere dividends that the two Björgólfurs received from their ownership of Landsbanki were actually HIGHER than the loan they would now like to have written off. The loan they took to be able to buy the bank. In other words, they milked out of the bank [...]

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Here are the charred ruins of Landsbanki. Now kindly write off our ISK 3 billion debt

July 9, 2009

I think it’s safe to say that the collective Icelandic nation pretty much keeled over at the news two days ago that the two Björgólfurs had allegedly requested that Kaupthing bank write off half of a loan used for acquiring a controlling share in Landsbanki in 2003 – an ISK 3 billion debt. Quick rewind: [...]

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