Iceland and ireland, like a great many other countries, allowed their banks to behave irresponsibly.
This, right here, is the evidence that their governments weren't quite as effective as we thought beforehand.
As compared to all those countries where wise regulators ensured wise bankers.
As compared to all those countries where wise regulators ensured wise bankers.
There are countries that did much better -- Canada, for instance, avoided a banking crisis. There are also countries that seem to have handled it better, such as the Baltic states.
Just to be clear: I'm not saying necessarily that I know what the optimal thing to do was, in 2007-2009. What I'm arguing is that it's often unclear for a long time how well a given country's policies have worked, since negative consequences don't always become visible quickly.
Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).
It seems such a wonderful concept, finally somewhere where new forms of government could be tried out. But I'm just wondering how in the world they hope to deal with existing governments since their reaction to any kind of serious alternatives, especially one that either economically or ideologically presented a significant challenge, is bound to not be positive.
I was just wondering what LWer thoughts are on this matter? Also has there been any discussion of seasteading in the past that I've missed? Also I'm wondering if anyone would hazard to perhaps offer a prediction or judge how likley this is to succeed (maybe on predictionbook)?