In April 2009, the author Michael Lewis published “Wall Street on the Tundra”, the first of his essays about the idiosyncratic ways certain European countries contributed to the global financial crisis.
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The essay is about Iceland, and it touches on Iceland’s rich fisheries and on the silly paradox that once you’ve gotten rich on fishing and the opportunity to do a spot of investment banking comes along, you don’t really think twice.
As for why, you can sort of imagine the working environment of an investment banker, even if you’ve never worked as one. It’s much harder to imagine the working environment of an Icelandic fisherman. The video above offers some guidance.