I agree that the article has rose-tinted glasses, but your post has (cynic coloured)-tinted glasses. I am replying here not to attack your post but to provide an alternate perspective.
> it's rare to break 1M isk a month (85 kUSD/year)
1M isk enough is very liveable here. If you disagree with this statement, I'm not surprised you left Iceland. Rightly so Icelandic society is undergoing a period of union-based striking in order to improve salaries for lower wage people (most recently teachers). If your motive in life is to maximise salary and pay minimal tax then, yes, Iceland isn't the best place to be.
> Most of that geothermal energy? Yeah, it's sent to massive aluminum smelting plants.
This is oddly snarky and vaguely frames this to be a negative when it is positive (especially for the economy). Roughly 85% of homes in Iceland are heated directly by geothermal energy. This drastically reduces residental electricity use. The economic situation in Iceland would be a lot worse if not for the smelters. Also, if the smelters were not in Iceland they would be elsewhere using electricity with a much higher carbon intensity. The article is wrong also, in that it praises Iceland for renewable energy when it is really just geographically lucky.
> the economy is collapsing
This is a pretty big statement that lacks any sort of support.
> the warring 10 parties of government are effectively slap fighting each other instead of changing anything just so they can not be the Independence party
As far as democracy goes, that sounds healthy to me. I agree that Icelandic politics is largely self-serving and is prone to "big fish in a small pond" mentality, but this is basically as good as democracy gets.
> Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month
No, annual inflation is 10%, so monthly inflation is around 0.8%. [1]
> Unfortunately, what used to be a very inexpensive place to visit is now incredibly expensive to fly to, and also expensive to be in
Yet tourism demand is quite good, which is creating a lot of jobs and bringing a lot of money into the country. It is now one of the 3 main pillars of the Icelandic economy (with electricity intensive industry and fishing). Odd that you'd look at this as a negative seeing as you have concerns about the economic health of Iceland.
> It isn't going to be the next hot tech spot though.
> The article is wrong also, in that it praises Iceland for renewable energy when it is really just geographically lucky.
Lots of places that are geographically lucky still fail to take advantage of that very same luck. Iceland could just as easily not have used geothermal energy to heat nearly all their homes, but they saw their advantage and capitalized on it. That should be commended, imho.
> it's rare to break 1M isk a month (85 kUSD/year)
1M isk enough is very liveable here. If you disagree with this statement, I'm not surprised you left Iceland. Rightly so Icelandic society is undergoing a period of union-based striking in order to improve salaries for lower wage people (most recently teachers). If your motive in life is to maximise salary and pay minimal tax then, yes, Iceland isn't the best place to be.
> Most of that geothermal energy? Yeah, it's sent to massive aluminum smelting plants.
This is oddly snarky and vaguely frames this to be a negative when it is positive (especially for the economy). Roughly 85% of homes in Iceland are heated directly by geothermal energy. This drastically reduces residental electricity use. The economic situation in Iceland would be a lot worse if not for the smelters. Also, if the smelters were not in Iceland they would be elsewhere using electricity with a much higher carbon intensity. The article is wrong also, in that it praises Iceland for renewable energy when it is really just geographically lucky.
> the economy is collapsing
This is a pretty big statement that lacks any sort of support.
> the warring 10 parties of government are effectively slap fighting each other instead of changing anything just so they can not be the Independence party
As far as democracy goes, that sounds healthy to me. I agree that Icelandic politics is largely self-serving and is prone to "big fish in a small pond" mentality, but this is basically as good as democracy gets.
> Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month
No, annual inflation is 10%, so monthly inflation is around 0.8%. [1]
> Unfortunately, what used to be a very inexpensive place to visit is now incredibly expensive to fly to, and also expensive to be in
Yet tourism demand is quite good, which is creating a lot of jobs and bringing a lot of money into the country. It is now one of the 3 main pillars of the Icelandic economy (with electricity intensive industry and fishing). Odd that you'd look at this as a negative seeing as you have concerns about the economic health of Iceland.
> It isn't going to be the next hot tech spot though.
I agree.
1 - https://www.sedlabanki.is/annad-efni/verdbolga/