Cultural Cataclysms in Lucky Little Iceland

My cousin got a beer bottle smashed over his head last month.
He was traveling in Europe with a friend, and some british lads found out they were Icelandic and decided to take out some interest on them.

So, the Icelandic banking system imploded over a few days, recently.
The collateral damage from that is rippling through western Europe and was in small part a trigger for the ongoing banking crisis worldwide.
All (three) of Iceland's commercial banks were nationalized, the stock exchange was closed and fell about 3/4 when it re-opened, as a consequence of financial stocks reopening at zero. Down almost 90% from peak last I checked.
The króna collapsed, and cannot be sold outside of Iceland at anywhere near the nominal exchange rate, and currency reserves are dangerously low with some importers unable to get credit to bring in even essentials.

Yet Iceland may still be one of the lucky few.

It collapsed first, while there were still resources to rescue them.
Iceland has the first installment on a $2 billion IMF bailout, and the first IMF imposed condition - interest rates shot up to 18% (had been at 15% then down to about 12%).
By all accounts the IMF conditions are relatively mild, as these things go, and I hear reliable word that the other $5 billion or so needed to tide the country over and get the currency earning export buffered, will soon be there. Probably without having to go to Russia.
Even the Faeroes chipped in, with a $52 million loan.
Thanks!
That will be well paid back, with interest and earned good will.

There are some interesting side effects: apparently 180 slightly used Porsche cars are for sale, along with a few thousand other luxury cars and SUVs.
There are actually a lot of people in Iceland who can genuinely use good off-road 4x4 SUVs, but as everywhere, a lot of the people who buy them use them for grocery store runs and kid dropoffs and would never dream of leaving paved roads - the car might get dirty.
Apparently dour Norwegians, who know a good bargain, are snapping up used Icelandic cars.
Car dealerships are also dumping stock at a loss, to overseas dealers, like Norwegian dealerships. Very few cars will be sold for a while in Iceland, except for insurance replacement of total losses.

Unemployment has jumped about 2%, and is now at about 2%.
Foreseen layoffs (car salesmen, for instance) will lead to 5-7% unemployment within a few months. Bad, but not catastrophic, if it stops there.
Foreign workers, I gather, left en masse, when their jobs vanished and the currency collapsed. The countryside still has jobs, and there will be a minor, temporary, exodus from the city back to the villages.
Icelandic students abroad are in trouble, loans and grants are worthless, and anyone who failed to transfer all their funding at the beginning of the year is broke.
There are anecdotal reports of Icelandic students evicted from rooms and apartments, for fear of future non-payment, or just as ethnic punishment.
Some will manage on other funds, by doubling up and cost-cutting, or just living on reserves until things get better. Many will not make it, and will go home breaking off their graduate education, possibly forever. Or they will try out for soccer scholarships, right?

Politically, popular fury is currently aimed at Britain - as I noted before, the invoking of anti-terrorism legislation to seize assets of Icelandic firms triggered a final collapse that might have been averted. The brits claims Iceland refused to honour obligations to depositors, forcing their hand, but a transcript of a phone call with UK chancellor DarlingM and a copy of an associated letter, seem to contradict the UK assertions.
PS: the scandal du jour in Iceland is that the Icelandic investment companies had heavy bets against the króna, to the tune of several billion $.
Not clear from the news stories if this is normal contingent hedging, or actual currency shorting. There is also some interesting introspective into the flow of russian oil money through Iceland over the last decade.
In the meantime, a regional council in Iceland has demanded that UK forces be banned from entering Iceland under any NATO force agreements... oh, and they want whaling quotas expanded. Folks go to eat, dontcha know.

There are still consequences.
The New Rich Kids have come out defend themselves, claiming they stayed within regulations and warned the Good Old Boys in the government that there were problems. Most of the country still hates them though, and the gratuitous and mostly true stories of conspicuous excess consumption are flying around.
There will be some clawbacks there, eventually.

Toilet paper and tampons will probably be kept in stock now, but trade is not, shall we say, optimized.
Icelandair is offering some very good deals on flights, aviation gas is cheaper and their salary costs are down, a lot. You can also get very good deals in Iceland on hotels and food now.

Prince Polo is running out!

My personal stash ran out last week, took the last bar with me in lieu of lunch on a flight to Boston. Prince Polo has not run out since Solidarity struck against Soviet rule about 20 years ago.

More bizarrely, Iceland is a great book buying nation. Both Icelandic authors, by the hundreds, and translations of great, popular and extraordinarily trashy novels are sold. The book sales, and number of titles, are, I believe, by far, the largest per capita in the world. Exceeded only by the number of sub-clauses in the preceding sentence.
Many of these books are printed in the UK.
The printers are refusing to ship them.
'fraid it might be terrorist literature, I guess. Or they won't accept the importers' Visa card.
Just in time for christmas.
Christmas, of course, is when most books are sold. The perfect present for the moody teenage cousin who you really do not know well enough.

Coming soon at a Galloway & Porter near you.
Look for the dark covers showing large tanks of fish innards and vaguely hinted at erotica as the lads from the boat come to spend their bonus at the country ball and the ladies from the flensing line sharpen their knives.

No books. No Prince Polo.
This is cultural catastrophe.