Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2016, Blaðsíða 6

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ALL
SEASON
S!
Glacier Lagoon
Jökulsárlón
– Day tour –
This great tour takes us along the impressive south
shore of Iceland to the extraordinary Glacier Lagoon.
Availability . . . . . . Saturdays
Pick up starts . . . . 07:00am
Duration . . . . . . . . 14 hours
Price . . . . . . . . . . . 18.900 ISK
Figures
Don't Lie
The percentage of
Icelanders who told a
University of Iceland
survey that they are
against more heavy
industry in the country.
Estimated total value
of the Prime Minister's
overseas holdings in ISK.

The likelihood that
the weather will be
awful when you made
plans to travel into the
countryside.
The number of government
ministers found to have links to
offshore companies–so far.
There's no
English word for:
The Word of the Issue this issue
is nenna. This is a very impor-
tant Icelandic word to learn. As
a verb, it means “to have the will
to do something,” and is almost
always used negatively, e.g., “Ég
nenni ekki út, ætla frekar að vera
inni í tölvunni.” (“I don't feel
like going out, I'd rather stay in
and go online.”) However, our
sources tell us English-speaking
immigrants in Iceland have also
started using it as a noun, e.g., “I
would, but I just don't have the
nenn for it.” SHARE: gpv.is/nenna
Nenna
THIS
ISSUE'S
ISSUE
These days everything is just facts, facts, facts. You hop on social media and every armchair pundit is just posting statistics, research findings, and
reasoned analysis. The Grapevine seeks to fill this void, with some much needed reasoning from the left and the right, those two directions that we
all know and love. Our pundits shall remain nameless, as they are, like all pundits, humble people, shy of the spotlight.
Tax Shelters
FOR
It's my money, god damn it. A lot of peo-
ple worked hard to get that money into
my bank account. And they probably al-
ready paid taxes on it. Why should I be
punished for being rich? Because that's
what taxes are, you know. Punishment
for being too successful.
I comes from humble beginnings.
Like most people, I started life with
just a few million in family money to
back me up. Times were tough, and there
were moments when I wondered if I'd ever
make it. But I managed to pull myself up
by the bootstraps, keep a stiff upper lip,
put my nose to the grindstone and a lot
of other metaphors for hard work. That
hard work paid off for me, as it would for
anyone else willing to give their all and
not accept any hand-outs.
Why, then, do I keep seeing all these
people making such a big deal about
the British Virgin Islands? Typical of
a small-country mentality, these are
people just looking to bully a country
even smaller than they are. And what
makes money so special, anyway? I
don't hear anyone complaining about
the sunglasses I left behind in the
Seychelles. But if it happens to be half
a billion ISK, suddenly everyone gets
their knickers in a twist.
Look, I can' help it if people are jeal-
ous of my success. But I shouldn't be
punished for being a hard-working, suc-
cessful capitalist who is smart about
avoiding financial persecution. It's
just common sense.
AGAINST
Why are we even having this discussion?
Our Prime Minister kept telling us how
awesome the króna is. He's the one who
insisted we stick to capital controls. He's
the one who called bank claimants “vul-
tures”. Yes, he is a great hypocrite for the
whole Wintris thing, but the media are
missing the bigger story here: why don't
we all have tax shelters?
Here's the thing. I only make about a
quarter million a month. That's not a lot
of money. After paying my bills I have
like maybe 50k to play around with for
the rest of the month. I can blow that in
a single weekend downtown.
Now, if my salary went into a bank
account in the British Virgin Islands, I
wouldn't have to worry about this kind
of thing. If it's good enough for like half
of the government, why isn't it good
enough for the rest of us?
This is just another example of the
poshies keeping all the best stuff for them-
selves. We need to shift our focus onto the
real story here. Rather than cutting off our
noses to spite our collective faces by trying
to deny the PM his tax shelter, if we had any
spine at all we would march down to Parlia-
ment, kick in the doors, and demand that we
all get tax shelters of our own. It's just com-
mon sense.
SHARE: gpv.is/wintris
From the movie Shelter, courtesy of Bifrost Pictures
Íslensk bókmenntasaga I-III
A review of the literature part 2
Hið hefðbunda ljóðform er nú loksins dautt.
Við tekur tvinn-poemið, bi-kvæðið.
The traditional poem is fucked.
Say hello to to the new twinn-kvæði, tví-póem
Fyrst þetta klassíska: First, the old skool:
Fyrr var oft í koti kátt sumarkvöldin
fögur. We had joy, we had fun, we had
seasons in the sun.
A POEM BY is curated by Grapevine’s
poetry liaison, Jón Örn Loðmfjörð
A Poem By
Ingólfur Gíslason
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2016
6