Iceland got SHANKED

Think we've got it bad here in the US? Take a look at Iceland, the country that's arguably been hit the worst by the recent economic crisis. The entire COUNTRY is bankrupt. FTA:

It must have seemed like a no-brainer: buy these ever more valuable houses and cars with money you are, in effect, paid to borrow. But, in October, after the krona collapsed, the yen and Swiss francs they must repay are many times more expensive. Now many Icelanders-especially young Icelanders-own $500,000 houses with $1.5 million mortgages, and $35,000 Range Rovers with $100,000 in loans against them.

Holy wow. They're stuck eating slowter, which as far as I can tell is a kind of haggis made from the intestines and blood of sheep. FTA:

Teitur Thorkellsson: It's made from intestines and blood and fat of the sheep, meaning everything but the meat.

Teitur Thorkellsson says that during the boom no one bothered with slowter. Now, it's become almost chic.

Thorkellsson: Right after the economic crash, then this became the most fashionable thing ever. You know, families were getting together and friends were invited to stand with their hands bloody in the kitchen making this slowter food, because it's extremely cheap.

Yuck.

(via Consumerist, Vanity Fair, and Marketplace)