Here is an entire nation of people who are ready to accept that they were living too far beyond their means and conclude that it was time to face the music. While still mid-journey and in the throes of discomfort (40-70 year-old Icelandic males are presently recorded as being "very angry" by researchers), they are getting on with it. There are no calls to double down on new national indebtedness to 'get things back to how they were.' They are not overrun with economists explaining how it would make sense for their central bank to simply flood the world with more Icelandic kronur. There is no sense that the illusory wealth brought about by the vast accumulation of debt is some sort of natural birthright that must be unquestioningly preserved.
In short, their attitudes and policies are nothing like those in the US.
Upon my return to the US, I was immediately greeted by the news that the recession had somehow ended a year ago, a period of time in which the number of civilians unemployed for 27 weeks or more had increased by 2,000,000+, and also heard that the Federal Reserve was considering expanding its money printing operations (in other words, the return of QE as a policy tool). These are two highly contradictory pieces of information, when you stop and think about it. The government is facing a sea of red budgetary ink as far as the eye can see, states are hemorrhaging, and housing continues to slump along. In all of this, one is hard pressed to find any sort of a conversation that goes like this: "We overdid it, there, and now it's time to tighten our belts and get used to living within whatever means our economy can actually support."
I could recite an nearly endless litany of facts, quotes and data all supporting the idea that the US is hell-bent on returning itself to a level of economic activity and growth that was provably overdone and unsustainable.
The difficult part for many in the US, including me, is the effort that it takes to maintain a vigilant stance when immersed in such a deep pool of complete denial. Part of me screams, "Get on with it already!" even as another part of me really does not want to get on with anything at all, preferring to use these steady moments to become better prepared for and more adjusted to whatever the new reality is going to be.
I note with mounting concern that I no longer care about things that used to provide me with much amusement and passion in the past. It's a form of burnout like we see in movies about war. The first time a single bullet gets shot past a new platoon, it sparks a vigorous reaction, "My god! That could have hit us! Yikes!" but by the end of the movie, some guys are standing around giving orders and talking to each other as mortars explode nearby and a steady whine of bullets fills the air around them. They no longer care, because they have been worn down in some elemental way, as if the human brain can only remain on high alert for so long before protecting its internal circuitry by shutting some of it down. Or perhaps it's simply what biologists call 'habituation' -- the process by which even sea slugs can be taught to ignore mild electrical shocks. My defense against this process of shutting down is to give talks, meet people, and increase my own personal and community resilience.
Through all of this, I find myself jealous of Iceland, whose natural and cultural resources permit an attainable vision of a stable and prosperous future, and which seems to be getting on with things by closing the gap between its prior excesses and future prospects.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/jealous-iceland/45089