Not­hing left to cut back

This week, the peningastefnunefnd of the central bank has now seen fit to raise interest rates for the 14th time in a row, under the auspices of controlling inflation by forcing people living in Iceland to spend less, and by making the cost of living prohibitively expensive.

Furthermore, today, I read that Seðlabanki went even further than that in their justifications.

They had the sheer naked audacity to try and lay the blame for the current state of affairs (and their actions) at the feet of the low-wage workers who last winter, spent four months trying to get some semblance of a quality of life by negotiating for a living wage.

I am one of those people who spent hundreds of hours locked in a room with SA. I am also a low wage worker, an immigrant, and a new homeowner.

All of those things mean that my life in the past few months has gotten measurably, steeply more expensive. I moved into an apartment in December which was marketed specifically towards young, first-time buyers.

Our mortgage payments in the past six months alone have increased by 70,000isk per month.

And make no mistake, I am one of the lucky ones. Between myself and my partner we have two incomes to rely on, no children and relatively low expenses.

If I was on my own living in Iceland, as an immigrant with no support network, i would not be able to survive.

If I had family members to support, I would not be able to survive.

If I had bought an apartment alone, I would not be able to survive.

If any number of circumstances would have conspired against me, I would not be able to survive.

The following passage I direct more specifically towards Ásgeir Jónsson as the head of Seðlabanki íslands:

Know this, currently there are over 50,000 immigrants living and working in Iceland. People who are doing the jobs that many Icelanders see as below them, jobs that are fundamental to allowing Icelandic society to simply function day by day.

If you continue on this path, I can assure you that a significant percentage of those people will start thinking very seriously whether staying living and working in Iceland is financially viable. They will leave the country, and leave the head of seðlabanki to make his own coffee and scrub his own toilet.

We are in a very literal sense, the glue that is holding Icelandic society together.

Your actions now go far beyond ignorance, naivitie or incompetence. You are displaying sheer malice at a population struggling to survive, marching them towards the edge of a cliff and blaming them for not wanting to take an extra step.

You claim that the problem lies with Icelandic people spending too much money on holidays to Tenerife.

There are approximately 380,000 people living in Iceland now, spending money on day to day living. Not expensive holidays, simply surviving.

This year alone, there are predicted to be over 2,000,000 tourists coming to visit Iceland, all willing and able to spend vast sums of money on expensive food, accomodation, transportation and luxuries.

You have never once mentioned this spending as a contributory factor towards inflation, despite the billions of króna spent every year in this way.

I believe that the reason for that is simple. Seðlabanki and the Icelandic goverment value tourist revenue more highly than the lives and wellbeing of Icelandic citizens.

They would not dare do or say anything which would put a dent in the fortunes of the few Icelandic families who own and run everything of value in this country.

I am therefore demanding(as should everyone reading this) that you, Ásgeir Jónsson, resign your post with immediate effect, and submit yourself and your offices for investigations into your actions.

I firmly believe that if left unchecked, your behavior can only end by crashing the entire Icelandic economy, and that must not be allowed to happen again.

You have been grinding your boot down on the neck of the poorest in society for too long, and we have tolerated it for long enough.

Your role and function is that of a public servant. You have utterly failed in this.

Therefore, the only way you are now able to serve the public further is to step down.

The author is a manufacturing worker.