Iceland stock market not looking good

Figure 1: The value of the OMX Iceland 15 from January 1998 to October 2008 (log scale).
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Iceland Stock Market
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Trading in shares of six financial companies on the OMX Nordic Iceland Exchange was suspended on 6 October by order of the FME. On Thursday 9 October, all trading on the exchange was frozen for two days by the government "in an attempt to prevent further panic spreading throughout the country's financial markets". The decision was made to do so due to "unusual market conditions", with share prices having fallen 30 percent since the start of the month. The closure was extended through Monday 13 October due to continuing "unusual market conditions".

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The market reopened on 14 October with the main index, the OMX Iceland 15, at 678.4, compared with 3,004.6 before the closure. This reflects the fact that the value of the three big banks, which form 73.2 percent of the value of the OMX Iceland 15, had been set to zero.

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After a week of very thin trading, the OMX Iceland 15 closed on 17 October at 643.1, down 93% in króna terms and 96% in euro terms from its historic high of 9016 (18 July 2007).

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Source:

If you are interested, I found a link to an OECD report on the environmental performance of Iceland.

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What do people think??

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Comments most welcome !!

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Please check out:

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Combating Climate Change and Boosting Growth Are Natural Allies

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Splitting: 'jobs' versus 'the environment'

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Polar Bear Begs

Nine meals from Anarchy

"Nine Meals from Anarchy: Oil Dependence, climate change and the transition to resilience" was the Schumacher Lecture 2008 (given in Leeds, UK) by Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation (NEF: Economics as if people and the planet mattered).

It is a great summary of the problems societies face (both now and in the past) and offers Solutions as if people and the planet mattered.

It is easy to read and has great quotes like this one:

"The invisible hand of the market has been at odds with the invisible heart of the core economy".

Simms suggests the core economy is made up of family, neighbourhood, community and civil society. The core economy is the operating system upon which the money economy depends upon (much like we depend upon the atmosphere). However the money system is corroding the core economy (working longer hours, capitalism promotes individual values over community values, etc).
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The values of the 'money economy' do seem to outweigh the values of the 'core economy' in modern society. Many people seem more concerned with 'interest' and their 'shares' than showing interest in others or sharing.

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In the same way, we often fail to value (and instead take advantage of) the Earth's 'core economy' (its fauna and flora, its forests, its rivers lakes and oceans, its local, regional and global ecosystems) and instead focus on the business/economic 'reality' (i.e. the money economy).

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We put anthropocentric values over ecocentric needs and as a result the Earth's core economy (broadly the environment) suffers - much as many people's work/life balance suffers when money becomes more important than people and community - except the results will be much worse than anything a financial crisis can muster. We need to learn to care about other species and share the Earth much more fairly between all.

Anyway, I hope you find 15 mins to read it.

Enjoy!

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What do people think??
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Comments most welcome !!
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Please check out:
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Combating Climate Change and Boosting Growth Are Natural Allies
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Splitting: 'jobs' versus 'the environment'
.
Polar Bear Begs

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Random Man Planet Earth

The 'Black Swan' and the 'Fourth Quadrant'

Sometimes you read something that really gets you thinking . . .

Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science"; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology; you can't be a modern intellectual and not think probabilistically—but... let's not be suckers. The problem is much more complicated than it seems to the casual, mechanistic user who picked it up in graduate school. Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now. It can even bankrupt the system (let's face it: use of probabilistic methods for the estimation of risks did just blow up the banking system).

The above is from an essay called THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [9.15.08]. It contains two very interesting ideas.

The idea of the 'black swan' (highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact) and the 'fourth quarter' (complex decisions in 'extremistan' [the Black Swan's domain] where statistics are useless and statistical based claims should be seen as hopeless guesses (at best).

Taleb suggests there are two classes of probability domains: Mediocristan and Extremistan.

In Mediocristan, exceptions occur but don't carry large consequences. Add the heaviest person on the planet to a sample of 1000. The total weight would barely change. In Extremistan, exceptions can be everything (they will eventually, in time, represent everything). Add Bill Gates to your sample: the wealth will jump by a factor of >100,000. So, in Mediocristan, large deviations occur but they are not consequential—unlike Extremistan.

Anyway, I thought you might like the link too.

What do you think???

Worried about the Earth ??

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Check out some mind food below

1. Nanotechnology - risks and benefits

2. 'Clean Coal' ???

3. Americans and climate change

4. What is nanotechnology?

5. Peak Oil Debate

6. Limits to growth ???

7. History of Nanotechnology
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More at http://randommanplanetearth.blogspot.com/