Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle, or steel. I'm Alexandra Rogge, and we're talking today

about the utter meltdown of Iceland's banking sector and the whole economy, really, in 2008.

My guest is Jared Bibbler. Jared is the author of an excellent book on the fiasco, Iceland's Secret, the untold story

of the world's biggest con.

He's an American who moved to Iceland in 2004, where he was eventually wiped out personally,

financially, by the collapse of the economy and ultimately investigated and exposed what happened there. Jared,

thank you for joining me. Thanks so much, Alexander. It's my pleasure to be with you.

Can you start by just giving us a very brief overview of Iceland? I think most of us think of it as a

small island state with a whole lot of volcanoes and hot springs. That's about right. I mean, it's actually a pretty

big island. It's a little bit bigger than Ireland, but it only has today about 347,000 people total.

And back in the days of 2008, I think it had about, I think, around 300, 310,000. So it's very, very small

population, very nice place to live. Most people live in

and around Reykjavik. And when I moved there in 2004, it was just, it was a dream life. It was such

an upgrade from my life in Boston that I thought I was going to be there one year and I never

looked back actually. It's a very, I think, 100% literate society. So socially like super developed.

It has really great, probably the best women's rights, gay rights in the world. It has the world's oldest, or Europe's oldest parliament,

which has been running since 9.30, almost without a break. Not 1930, but 9.30. So it's a very proud

place with some very old literature. People are very proud to be Icelandic. But on the other hand, it's a very proud place with some very old literature. People are very proud to be Icelandic. But on the

other hand, it's a new country. It's only been free from the Danish crown since I think 1918.

And it's only been a republic since 1944. It's both a young country and a very old one at the same time.

In a lot of ways, Iceland has like a split personality.

And I love it. I think that comes through in the book. I love the place.

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