Multicolored rooftops and the harbour are seen on the city skyline in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Friday, Aug. 10, 2012.Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg
One of the things that rankles most about the financial crisis is that while the whole mess cost untold billions in bailouts and cash pumped into the banking system, not a single person has gone to jail.
Not so in Iceland, where the 25th and 26th bankers were put behind bars last week for criminal actions leading up to the implosion of the country's financial system, the Independent reported. But in Iceland, revenge is not so sweet: The longest sentence that can be meted out for white-collar crime is six years.
Never mind, at least the economy is getting a tiny boost from it all. A guided tour called "Bankers Behind Bars" looks at the causes and consequences of the financial shenanigans of 2008, the Washington Post reports. As tour leader Magnus Sveinn Helgason told the Post: "What could be more exciting than the story of how a tiny country was turned into a giant hedge fund, only to blow up?"
Seems the bar for what constitutes excitement is not particularly high in Iceland.
Place your bets
It's hard to get a measure of the odds of it happening, but a global poker league may soon become a reality.
Global Poker Index founder Alexandre Dreyfus is looking to set up an international league of 12 teams playing a 14-week season in big venues, Quartz reported this week. Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Sao Paulo would represent the Americas conference, while a Eurasia conference would comprise the remaining six teams.
How likely is it this thing will get off the ground? Mr. Dreyfus says that since it will be a league, with statistics and all that stuff, it's sure to qualify as a sport.
Don't bet on it, says lawyer David Klein, who specializes in Internet poker and fantasy sports law (no, I'm not making that up) and describes Mr. Dreyfus's take as "an aggressive interpretation of the law.
"At the end of the day, it's still poker."
The cost of happiness
Think a raise would make you happier? Think a really big raise would make you even more happy?
Not necessarily, according to economist Angus Deaton, who scooped a Nobel Prize earlier this week for research into poverty and development.
Prof. Deaton co-wrote a report in 2010 with another Nobel winner, psychologist Daniel Kahneman, concluding that after a certain point, a higher salary won't buy you any more happiness.
The magic number is about $75,000 – although that's in U.S. 2010 dollars, so with the flailing loonie, you'd need to revise the number upward – the pair found, after which point everyday contentment levels out.
But another metric, that of overall life satisfaction, rises along with incomes, the report concluded, even though day-to-day happiness tops out at $75,000: "High income buys life satisfaction but not happiness."
So there you go. Lots of money can't buy you love, and it can't buy you more happiness, either.
How sweet it isn't
It may not rate up there with conspiracies about a faked moon landing, but a senior public health official in Britain this week leaked a report completed in July that the government was apparently trying to bury, according to The Independent.
The nub of it: A recommendation to put a levy on sugary foods to combat what has been called an epidemic of obesity in the country.
Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and chairman of the group Action on Sugar, this week described efforts to "conceal" the report's findings as "unbelievable," the Telegraph reported.
Sweet-toothed Brits reeling at the prospect of a levy can be reassured by Prime Minister David Cameron, who has said there are better ways to approach the problem costing the country`s health service £15-billion ($30.2-billion) a year.
Unsurprisingly, the food and drink industry is against any such move, with the head of the northern Europe division of Mondelez – the parent company of Cadbury – pointing to a report suggesting a "fat tax" in Denmark failed when consumers went abroad to buy cheaper butter and ice cream (and thus undermining underground butter-smuggling networks, presumably).
But Londoners may not be so lucky. The city has a "congestion charge" for vehicle traffic, and Mayor Boris Johnson, if he has his way, would like to introduce a sugar levy in London. You could call it an "ingestion charge."