“No Data Found”
When The Goalpost Keeps Moving, I Keep Moving
At age 5, my daughter wanted to be a math teacher.
4 + 4 = 3
My daughter, her father and I moved to Iceland from California a few months after she made this illustration. We told her we came to Iceland for waterfalls and adventure. And that is true. We also came because her father and I were willing to take a risk during the pandemic, and try a new land to grow our family’s fortunes, in health and prosperity, thinking, if all three of us were working from home, why not move our e-home to a home in Iceland? We had a legal pathway to migration, and the will power to try. We needed some support with a flight, because we do not own a private plane fleet! A waterfall is a form of a parabola, a quadratic equation. A rainbow is a parabola. And most of the time seeing rainbows and waterfalls in real life is pure magic. Banks in Iceland use parabolas. That is math, or geometry, not magic.Lines of code to operate a robot that cleans the gym might use the same math tools, derivatives. The feeling of a clean floor? Magic!
I get ahead of myself here in the blog. This is not about eBay. This is not about cod or collapse, though I hope the gentle reader will see it is about something big. This blog is my personal account of my year of trying to get a personal loan in a system that is understandably afraid, because not just anyone should be able to borrow money.
Let us start at the beginning, shall we?
“A Worthless Loan”
Iceland weighs in with its cost of living suggestion with a “worthless loan” This is from 2022, as translated by my computer’s Artificial Intelligence. Maybe I won’t have Chatbots apply for an Icelandic mortgage this time around!
The ups and downs…and up agains
- June 2022 — The first bank officer explains how to divide in half, even though I know how to divide in half.
2. Fall 2022
Back from my father’s funeral, I try again.
This time, it’s a different explanation: “No loan for you, you are a foreigner.”
But… I had been a foreigner before, and I got a loan then. Still a foreigner. What changed?
When I reply to the officer that I was a foreigner in 2021, and then, as foreigner, I signed on a bank loan in Iceland. I am still the same person in 2022, but the bank officer looks at me like I am crazy.
3. Another appointment, another attempt.
This time, I go to a bank ready to show how foreign I am. But, instead of being given a loan, the bank officer tells me I need “unlimited” immigration status. I think to myself: I have unlimited love for many causes, but this banking thing is starting to be unlimitedly ridiculous. I ask my lawyer in Iceland about the “unlimited” and the law firm says it makes no sense. So, I decide to try again some other day.
4. Christmas Gifts:
The interest rates on December 19, 2022, were still increasing steadily from June 2022, or an increased several points from the post it note explanation of how to divide in half. In December, I was rejected for another random reason. Maybe it was “no data found” on me in the Icelandic tax system, into which I have been paying since 2020. I did not feel great about having no data, so I emailed my Icelandic accountant, who found this strange, too. I got my daughter a golden world map that day, and had her gift ready under the Christmas tree. Lots of data to scratch off such as Sloths moving into Antaractica ; )
4. New Year, New Me
2023 comes and I think to myself: Let me try a bank near the financial center of the capital, in January 2023. I have been a foreigner with a loan, and I have paid my car insurance, and I have no idea why this is so hard, but let’s do this!
I had just finished a long day at work nearby. I parked my car, which I paid for all cash, in full the year before, and had not a drop of debt on the vehicle.
For months, I had been paying car insurance. This time, wait for it, the bank officer tried to sell me… car insurance I already had.
This clue was interesting. Could it be the bank officer was not even looking at my file? Because if they did, they could (presumably and hopefully) factor in my credit built up by paying car insurance for a year. I drove with my daughter’s father to this photo shoot location a while ago. Motherhood is a leap of faith, marriage is a leap of faith, but car insurance? Car insurance is a click on a website in 2023. The bank that day is the parent company of my car insurance provider.
5. It’s not You. It’s Me. Or, maybe it is you?
I decide to break up with Icelandic banks for a while. At this point, 100 percent of the workers were giving me random explanations 100 percent of the time, and the interest rates were double from June 2022. If 2 ÷ 2 = abstract art in the first post-it note, then, 2 x 2 = super high mortgage rate. Maybe it’s just best to rent?
The “Can’t Manage Inflation” Club
ISRAEL & ICELAND
Secured, Mixed, and Worthless
“Secured, mixed, and worthless” might sound like a description of my mood before, during and after my loan saga. But it’s an economic term from Icelandic to English through artificial intelligence. The two nations of Israel and Iceland have a “cost of living” loan for their citizens. My 2023 artificial intelligence translates from Icelandic as a “worthless loan.”
Love that AI translation : )
Israel is one of three nations in the world that do this type of loan. Iceland is another, and there is a third one out there, too! But that is for another blog. The Madad (cost of living index) in Israel advises customers:
At the end of each month your outstanding principle is adjusted to reflect the cost of living index. Typically the cost of living index increases by 2% a year — which implies that your outstanding principle and your payments will increase in a similar proportion. While this can be the most tempting option because of the inexpensive up-front payments, in the long run, the overall cost of the loan can be significantly higher than a mortgage linked to the prime rate.
From the official site “A Guide to Different Types of Mortgages in Israel”
“Madad” = Semitic Root Word
Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic are languages known to be a family (Semitic Language) confirmed, and celebrated at times, by scholars since the medieval era of humanity.
One Semitic Family Language I know is Arabic. The Israeli loan for MADAD is the same root in Arabic, such as “to extend a hand” = لتمتد يد
To summarize, during the year of June 2022 — June 2023, I heard: “No loan for you, you are a foreigner.” And on another occasion, a residence permit without a time limit was required. The Icelandic word “Ótimabundið” is what a mortgage officer told me. Possibly, each private bank is free to set its rules, and none of the workers explained, at our private bank, our rule is X or Y. The national bank has the lowest interest rate for me as a consumer, and the worker there has been extremely helpful. Finally, this month, I learned what I think I need to do as a freelancer and a worker (set up an EHF) plus the USD source might be (n) x 1.4 as well. I have to pay the equivalent of $12,000 USD to Iceland’s Tax Authority in one year because I did have a loan (as a foreigner) and I sold the home on that loan (as a divorcing woman) and I am resourceful but I cannot figure everything out, all at once. Stay Tuned!
If this were a movie, we would resolve everything in Act III. But it’s messy real life. So, you and I will have to wait and see.
Iceland’s Golden Egg: Democracy
In every crisis, there can be opportunity. And, Iceland has miraculously bounced back not once, but twice, after large inflation debacles.
Iceland is fundamentally a modern 21st century democracy. Countries with inflation and dictatorships, such as today’s rulers and citizens in Venezuela and Russia, cannot claim the privilege or truth of democracy. Nothing in life is “risk free” especially not a mathematical tool called a “worthless loan” so, in life, we hope for the best, gather our tools, get support from our friends who can lend a hand. Iceland’s response to be part of solidarity for Ukraine is part of being a collective looking to Europe. The European Film Awards I attended in 2022 December were a beautiful celebration of art house cinema, with special attention given to Ukraine.
I share this blog post as a private citizen, to offer my experience, not to give any financial advice.
I will simply note that I am a curious person, who holds a university degree, and who understands parabolas. More importantly, I know how to keep knocking on doors when I am rejected. Not, if rejected, but when, I ask myself repeatedly: “Do I want this enough?” or “Do I need this enough?” These are questions that anchor me, and if the answer is YES, then I go forward, trying my best. I hope to share with my daughter these lessons.
Rejection is part of life. It is how we transform setbacks that tells us most about who we are, and who we will become.
Like Iceland, I can take the setbacks in my loan addiction / need (depending on how one frames it) and discover how to do things. I have community, friends, a brain, tools, and a deep desire to ask “Why” and “Tell me more about that” as I try understand the world around me. This blog is a true story of the past year in my life in Iceland. Iceland has had some major financial crashes, not one but two, and not just per capita was their 2008 crash a big let down, but some economists say it was the largest crash in the history of modern capitalism…
Stay tuned as I try to seal the deal before June 2024. Otherwise, I might have to say goodbye to a place that makes things so difficult. But also, to a land where I have beautiful friends and share some tender moments. I am far from home (California) but I make roots here and try to thrive.
The phone video I created to document the annual Icelandic Sheep Roundup, 2023, shows the power of working together for the greater good. The Sheep will freeze in winter if left out on the hillside after October. This important act of communities working together, on horse, on foot, and by vehicle to save the collective is a big reason I was attracted to Iceland as a safe harbor for my daughter in 2020.
“Sheep are integral to Iceland: some 800,000 roam the country, more than twice the human population, and they’ve sustained the island’s inhabitants for centuries…September brings réttir — the nationwide roundup where people on foot, ATVs or Icelandic horses retrieve their stock from the mountains and valleys, aided by trusty sheepdogs. The grueling endeavor sometimes requires days in the saddle, and entire communities turn out in support. The ancient tradition is followed by sorting at réttirs, circular pens with radiating sections where farmers separate their herds. It’s a grand country party, where friends, family, and neighbors come together to play music, picnic outdoors, and help each other marshal their sheep. Tourists are welcome to join in on the fun.”
— Iceland Airlines tourism promotion about the sheep roundup
Iceland’s economy successfully survived bankruptcy and civil unrest in recent years. At the moment of the 2008 financial collapse, some citizens responded with anger (riots in Reykjavik), while other citizens responded with humor (someone listed Iceland for sale on the e-commerce platform e-Bay), and still others, looked around to find the most vulnerable (students from Iceland abroad) and tried to offer a helping hand. For some good folks in the nation, it is second nature to help. For others, destruction and humor are responses to crisis.
Working together, diplomats from Iceland to England dispatched immediately in the embassy in London to create an immediate food program for Icelandic students trapped, far from home, with a currency that went worthless overnight in 2008. Low on hard currency, but rich in hard fish, delicious Omega-3 rich cod was donated by Icelandic fisheries and distributed at regular pick up moments outside Iceland to support the Icelandic students.
“LONDON (Reuters) — Great scenery and wildlife but financial situation in need of repair — collect in person.
Iceland, which is going cap in hand to Russia for a 4 billion euro loan to bail out its failed banks, was offered for sale as a wholesale lot on eBay on Friday. Bidding started at 99 pence but had reached 10 million pounds by mid-morning on Friday.
Globally renowned singer Bjork was “not included” in the sale, according to the notice, but there were nonetheless 26 anonymous bidders and 84 bids.
Iceland’s 2008 banking collapse used some tools of parabolic mathematics. Those equations are not magic. Those equations are derivatives. Lines of code in a Wall Street transaction might use derivatives. Right now, I need to figure out what I can borrow, per my income in this foreign land (foreign to me, a citizen of The United State of America). Perhaps I will use some calls and puts and sell shares of private companies on the stock market using this equation:
Iceland does not flood the market with overprinting money these days. Some dictators elsewhere do exactly that. “Money does not grow on trees” of course. I love the Slothney Money, designed by daughter. Does not buy groceries, but makes me happy and is currently framed in gold, in my living room in Reykjavik.
My daughter asks me if I am a millionaire. When I reply, I try to explain things like exchange rates, and the richness of life being free to use money to do what brings happiness and health. With 2023 exchange rates, 1.645.080 Icelandic kronur is the price of freedom from a “worthless mortgage” and the cost Iceland will bear for the challenges over 12 months for 1 weird nerdy filmmaker lady who fit no boxes.
If I cannot make Iceland work for me financially, then you bet your bottom dollar I will find another way forward.
Maybe an alternate title for this blog could be: “There are some things money can’t buy… not even a bank loan!”
And for everything else, there’s HOPE.
