My first appointment after lunch today was with Krona Kronasson from the Icelandic Embassy here in Washington. He brought me a bottle of Reyka vodka.
“Distilled entirely with geothermal energy,” he proudly told me as he took a seat on the couch by the window, “and made with glacial water filtered through a 4,000 year old lava field.”
“Thanks,” I replied as I accepted his gift, biting my tongue slightly – Reyka’s manufactured and distributed by William Grant and Sons, a Scottish firm, after all – “I appreciate authenticity.” Well, that was a true statement, wasn’t it? “What brings you to my office today?”
Kronasson knit his brow with a hint of anguish. “Iceland has recently developed a… problem with the English. Perhaps you have heard about it?”
“Seems to me I have,” I admitted as I stashed the vodka with the rest of the liquor in the credenza. “The Icelandic banking system collapsed, and when you discovered that you didn’t have enough funds to cover everybody, you decided to stiff your foreign depositors and take care of Icelanders first. And the ‘problem,’ as you put it, with England is that there were quite a few British private depositors with IceSave, the on-line Internet Icelandic bank, and a number of British firms and organizations with deposits in your other major banks, all of whom found that their money had become, shall we say, suddenly unavailable. So, the Brown Government froze Icelandic assets in the United Kingdom, under Her Majesty’s Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001.”
“Terrorism!” Kronasson hissed out the word. “Can you imagine, Mr. Collins, how the people of Iceland feel about being called terrorists?”
“I’m sure that nobody enjoys being called a terrorist,” I observed, “unless, of course, they’re someone like Osama bin Laden, who would probably take it as compliment. But, to be as fair as possible to Prime Minister Brown, I’m sure that he wishes the legislation allowing him to seize Icelandic property in the United Kingdom was called ‘The Hail Foreign Fellows and Stalwart Alien Friends Act of 2001’ instead.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Kronasson observed. “It seems to me that the least their Parliament could have done would have been to pass another law that didn’t have ‘terrorism’ in the title.”
“No doubt, “ I speculated, “the Brown Government concluded that if a special law with a less offensive title were proposed, most of the Icelandic assets involved would be whisked out of England while the measure was undergoing debate in the House of Commons.”
“Maybe,” Kronasson conceded. “But you have to realize how insulting it is, having a country who we thought was our good friend characterize us in such a manner.”
“Here in America,” I informed him, “we teach our children that ‘sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.’”
Kronasson laughed, somewhat derisively, it seemed to me. “It has been a long, long, time,” he chuckled, “since you Americans told your children that. Today, you tell them that ‘words can hurt’ and teach them how to sue in court for every little thing that they don’t like, including insults.”
“So, does that mean,” I inquired, “your government is going to sue Mr. Brown’s for libeling Icelanders?”
“We’re thinking about it,” he admitted. “But the Icelandic government has asked for advice from the Icelandic diplomatic community before taking any action.”
“And you’re here about that?”
“Among other things, yes.” Kronasson frowned slightly, considering. “What do you think, Mr. Collins? Should Iceland sue England for calling Icelanders ‘terrorists?’”
“I’m not a lawyer, Mr. Kronasson,” I cautioned.
“And I’m quite well aware of that,” he assured me. “I didn’t come here for legal advice. I’m not asking if Iceland has a valid defamation case against England, or where Iceland would sue England, or what kind of damages Iceland should seek from England for slandering Icelanders. Our government has other representatives, who, at this very moment, are speaking about those issues with a number of lawyers. What I want to know from you, Mr. Collins, is whether or not the idea passes what you Americans call the ‘laugh test.’”
“No doubt about it,” I opined after a healthy guffaw. “The concept is definitely funny.”
“So,” he squinted at me, uncertainly, “what you really mean is, it flunks the laugh test, because the idea is sufficiently ridiculous, to make you laugh?”
“Okay,” I agreed, “you could put it that way. This isn’t the first time you and the English have gotten into an argument with significant comic potential, is it? What about that ‘cod war’ you two had back in the day? A war over codfish – if that’s not an idea with plenty of potential for cheap yucks, I’ll turn in my whoopie cushion.”
“That,” Kronasson protested, “isn’t the least bit fair to Iceland. For decades since our independence from Denmark in 1944, Iceland has struggled to be recognized as a fully sovereign nation and to be taken seriously by the international community – and we were succeeding at it, too! Until all this banking mess happened, we were all set assume a seat on the next United Nations Security Council.”
“Which,” I surmised, “doesn’t appear likely now?”
“No,” Kronasson shook his head sadly. “Now that our bankers have screwed foreign depositors from one hundred and three different nations, we’ll be lucky if members of our UN delegation don’t get spit balls thrown at them on the floor of the General Assembly.”
“Whatever possessed the Icelanders,” I wondered, “to get into banking in such a big way in the first place?”
Kronasson considered my question for a moment, then shrugged. “Most of the year, you know, Iceland is dark as a dungeon and colder than… what is it you Americans say… a witch’s chest?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, so,” he continued, “banking is something you can do inside, where it’s warm, with the lights on, all running on geothermal power. I can tell you, Mr. Collins, with stark and unwavering certainty, that banking sure beats the hell out of bobbing up and down, green to the gills with seasickness on water so cold, a person can’t live more than ten minutes if they fall into it, wrestling with tons of slippery, wet, dangerous equipment, lashed raw by sub-zero, gale-force frostbite-inducing winds and plagued at every turn by ice – ice storms, iced rigging, iced ropes, iced nets, iced decks, ice floes and icebergs – fishing for cod in the tempestuous, treacherous and merciless North Atlantic.”
“Makes sense to me,” I agreed.
“Banking’s much better, all around,” he commented, nodding toward the credenza, “and, of course, you can still do it just fine with a couple of drinks in you.”
“Sure,” I said cheerfully as I arose from my desk, strode over to the credenza and opened the lower cabinet doors. “Reyka vodka martini?”
“Ever had it with a touch of raspberry?” Kronasson pointed at the Chambord bottle next to the Grand Marnier.
“Certainly,” I affirmed. “How about a raspberry vodka lime rickey?”
Kronasson knit his eyebrows. “What’s a lime rickey?”
“An old fashioned American soda fountain drink,” I explained, “made with fresh lime juice, sugar syrup, raspberry flavoring and carbonated water. My version includes vodka and substitutes Chambord for the raspberry flavoring, as well as chilled mineral water for the soda.”
“Sounds… pretty good,” he murmured, licking his lips.
So, about five minutes later, we were both kicking back with nice, strong Chambord vodka rickeys made with key limes, San Pellegrino and Kronasson’s Reyka. I’ve found that, like banking, consulting is one also of those jobs you can do just as well – hell, maybe even better – with a couple of drinks in you.
“Outstanding,” Kronasson extolled after his first couple of sips. “This one is positively inspired. Did you make it up?”
“Ah, no,” I confessed. “My father did. He was, at one time, the bartender at a New York society hotel off Central Park.”
“Well,” Kronasson stated confidently, “he was some kind of mixology genius, I think.”
“That,” I concurred, “he most certainly was,” taking a couple of sips of my own. “So, in order that I obtain the necessary background information to assist you with the best advice possible, could you tell me – how did you Icelanders end up in such a pickle?”
Kronasson grimaced slightly, placed his drink on the end table and extended his hands outward, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. “By imitating you Americans, basically. We attracted a lot of depositors with our high interest rates…”
“Which were based,” I interjected, “on trading the same kind of dubious securities that the big American banks were trading?”
“Pretty much,” he acceded. “Trading in derivatives allowed us to offer very attractive rates to our depositors.”
“Rates that attracted additional capital for you to use trading derivative securities.”
“Right.” He reached for his drink again, taking a long pull. “And so it went – higher and higher – until the bubble burst.”
“Those extra percentage points you offered your depositors,” I queried, “nobody ever tried to trace them back to any real wealth, did they? I mean, the extra money you paid to your depositors was just an artifact of the unjustifiably inflated value your banks’ derivative securities had, wasn’t it?”
“Bottom line, yes, I suppose so,” Kronasson muttered as he upended his glass. “Our banks were using paper profits to attract real money, yes, indeed, just like your banks were doing. And when the paper profits disappeared, well, here we Icelanders were, with nothing but codfish again.” He glanced meaningfully at his empty highball glass. “Got another?”
“Absolutely,” I assured him as I opened my office fridge and began loading a second highball glass with Evian ice cubes. “And about how much do British depositors have in Icelandic banks?”
“Oh,” he sighed, contemplating the ceiling for a long moment, “I hear it’s about a billion English pounds, or thereabouts.”
“That works out to over three thousand pounds – over five thousand US dollars,” I observed, “for every man, woman and child in Iceland. And that,” I pointed out as I handed him a fresh vodka lime rickey, “doesn’t count the defaulted deposits from the other one hundred and two foreign countries.”
“No,” he grunted, “that’s another issue, altogether.”
“That’s quite a bit of codfish,” I remarked, “no matter how you slice it. What else does Iceland have going for it at the moment?”
Kronasson took yet another deep pull and shook his head. “Not much – aluminum smelting, ferrosilicon exports and, uh, tourism.”
“What with everybody in the world being basically broke now, plus all those people being mad at Iceland, well, I wouldn’t expect too many tourists in the near future,” I cautioned. “And I can’t imagine the demand for aluminum or ferrosilicon suddenly undergoing a steep increase while the international economy slides down the drain.”
“True,” he whispered, his voice filled with sudden hopelessness. “Iceland’s really just a pile of hot rocks with some grass growing on them here and there.”
“You might as well,” I observed as I resumed my seat at my desk, “be Native Americans living on a reservation.”
Kronasson cocked his head toward me inquisitively. “How so?”
“Ah, well,” I elaborated, “the American government always made sure that the Indians got stuck with the most desolate, useless tracts of land for their reservations, and, generally speaking, that’s where the Indians have stayed since the late nineteenth century, with a few exceptions.”
“Exceptions?”
“Oh, yeah,” I informed him, “in a few cases, valuable minerals or petroleum were discovered on some Indians’ lands, so Washington made sure they got kicked off those and had to move to some other God-forsaken place.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s an odd thing about us Icelanders,” he pondered. “Your aborigines, they were living on the best lands they could find, weren’t they?”
“Certainly, the more successful the Indian tribe, the better the land they had, that’s for certain,” I confirmed.
“Then the settlers kicked them off it, right?”
“Exactly.”
“But the Icelanders, we actually chose to live in – what did you call it – a God-forsaken place?”
“Well,” I consoled, “I’m sure that Iceland is very nice sometimes.”
“No,” my visitor disagreed, “it’s not all that nice, anytime. It’s just what you said – God-forsaken. No need to try and make me feel better about it,” he muttered in a voice about to crack as he took another overly long pull from his glass, and I noted what appeared to be some tears welling up in his eyes. “And now,” he sobbed as I handed him one of my Dior handkerchiefs, “we’re just like your Indians – living in a God-forsaken place and poor as dirt.”
“There, there,” I comforted, patting him gently on the shoulder while he cried, all the while remembering what had I thought up during my consulting session just last week with that woman from AIG, “I think I have a solution.”
“You do?” Kronasson’s eyes, now red rimmed, nevertheless betrayed a ray of hope.
“Yes. Now that Iceland is broke, I think you should do what many of our Native Americans have done.”
“Which is what?”
“Open some casinos.”
“Casinos?”
“It worked for the Indians,” I confidently asserted.
“We already have a few,” he said. “They’re on-line, Internet casinos.”
“Open some live ones,” I persisted. “Turn Reykjavík into another Monte Carlo, another Atlantic City, another Las Vegas.”
“And trade those nice tourists who want to see our volcanos for idiot gamblers who want to strike it rich trying to beat the house? No,” he shouted, recoiling from the idea. “It’s one thing to have people gambling on Internet servers in Iceland, and quite another to have them wandering around our streets after they’re cleaned out, looking for some way to kill themselves – or maybe looking for someone to rob – and maybe kill them doing it. Gambling brings all kinds of bad behavior,” he fretted. “It will, without a doubt, inevitably foster prostitution.”
At that point, I realized that Kronasson’s remark had reminded me of something I’d suggested, albeit facetiously, to Spenderson of EOP in September. This meeting, I mused, was most definitely turning into déjà vu all over again, as the inimitable Yogi Berra once put it. Well, I briefly reflected, why should I find that surprising? Everybody’s been coming to me with the same problem lately, haven’t they? Namely, that nearly the entire population of this whole stinking planet – with the exception of people like Hank Paulson and Bill Gates, of course – is headed straight for the poor house. “Very well then, turn Reykjavík into another Amsterdam, too,” I suggested. “There’s plenty of tourist revenue in it – why should the Dutch get all the money? Besides,” I observed, “everybody knows Icelandic girls love to have sex. Only now, they’ll charge money for it, just like the girls do in Mexico, where none of the women enjoy sex, whether the guy pays for it or not. The fact that Icelandic girls used to give it away like party favors on New Year’s Eve is bound to be a big draw over places like Tijuana. That’s a very significant male fantasy, you know, that the whore is enjoying it; highly marketable. Sure,” I acknowledged, “the crime rate in your neat, clean and well-ordered little Scandinavian country might go up a bit, and things there might not be so clean, neat and orderly after a while, either, but issues such as those never bothered the Indians any, and these days a lot of tribes live quite well off gaming.”
“And you think Iceland could, too?”
“A place like Iceland,” I frankly spoke, “in the situation it’s in now, won’t really have much of a choice.”
Kronasson killed his second drink, then rose to shake my hand. “Okay,” he acquiesced, “I guess we Icelanders have had our dance with the Devil, and now it’s time to pay the piper.”
“Dealing blackjack and pimping won’t be all that bad,” I encouraged.
“How bad could they be? Anything,” he assured me as he took his leave, “is better than freezing your [expletive] off fishing for [expletive] cod.”