Talk:Davíð Oddsson

message: Sorry for the bad quality -- I tried to be discreet whilst taking the photograph....  Maybe some Icelandic Wikipedian can contribute a better one. -- Kaihsu 17:52, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)
:I changed it with much better one! :)--Avala 15:11, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: I removed the tag because everything in this section is supported elsewhere in the article, and can in any case be found elsewhere, e.g., in Wikipedia. Cheers  Io 20:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Original Research

message: I find it odd that an article in English would choose to use non-English letters. Shouldn't names be written in letters that can be understood in English? This might be something others have already discussed. If so, can someone point me to the discussion. thanks tigermarks (talk) 08:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Icelandic Script

message: Have I missed something, or does this article fail to mention Oddson's role as the (by many accounts, incompetent, and by all accounts, beleaguered) chief of the central bank during the ongoing financial crisis in Iceland? Rightly or wrongly, his actions and competence have been criticised, and it seems unusual that the timeline of this biography seems to terminate around 2005. He is very much a figure in the news, and this article should be updated to reflect that. I am also slightly concerned by the excessively familiar tone of the piece - Wikipedia articles on famous people are supposed to be biographies, not hagiographies. It's also very unfortunate that this article has only two references, of which only one is complete. A former Prime Minister of any country, particularly such a long serving one, deserves a better written and more complete article than this appears to be. The lack of any detail on his role as CBI chief strikes me as particularly egregious, as does the excessively familiar, unencyclopaedic tone of the piece overall - although clearly there have been concessions to balance in most areas and I do not mean to denigrate the effort that has gone in to the article as it stands. Badgerpatrol (talk) 19:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Much of the article was written in 2006 (when Davíð had only recently been appointed to the central bank) by Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson / User:Hannes H. Gissurarson. Hannes was relatively new at Wikipedia and hadn't quite assimilated our flat and dull writing style. He is also Davíð's friend (and makes no secret of that). Maybe he could be persuaded to expand the article with information from the last few years. He's not the most neutral person in the world but he's a very energetic writer with a very good knowledge of the subject. Haukur (talk) 20:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope there's more than one internet user in Iceland who could update the article of a former Prime Minister! I also see from the template at the top of the page that the Icelandic language version of this piece is featured - if so, it must contain a more up to date biography. Hopefully an Icelandic speaker could transwiki it across, appropriately translated? Unfortunately I don't speak any Icelandic otherwise I would volunteer to do it myself. Badgerpatrol (talk) 11:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll give you three guesses as to who wrote the Icelandic article. It, too, has not been updated much since 2006. Haukur (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to remove the legacy section, which was speculative and uncited.  In any case,  a "Legacy" section seems blatantly out of place when the man is a obviously a current political figure whose legacy is unclear.  I'm replacing it with a short reorganised section on his time as director of the Central Bank.  This needs massive expansion.  -- Palthrow (talk) 14:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing information?

message: To promote debate I'm posting a para recently deleted from the article. Seems peculiar this article has no link to the wiki article on the 2008-2011 Icelandic Financial crisis.
The latter Davíð Oddsson government (1995–2004) under the influence of monetarist policies of Milton Friedman embarked on a course of tax cuts and privatisations of industry and banks. It cut the corporate income tax to 18%; it abolished the net wealth tax; it lowered the personal income tax and inheritance tax. This created an entrepreneurial climate in Iceland based on borrowing money to buy assets and trading in hedge funds and options. It briefly spurred record economic growth in the country, with the real average income of individual households increasing by more than 17%, but precipitated the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis and has been termed "one of the single greatest acts of madness in financial history.Ref: Michael Lewis. Boomerang. Trabels in the Third World. WW Norton. NY. 2011 p1 and p13.  NimbusWeb (talk) 09:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: NimbusWeb, the purpose of Wikipedia is not to be a debating forum but an encyclopedia. As for your edits, there are major problems with them. Excuse me if I am a bit blunt, but I want to be clear and constructive. The reason for the reverts of your edits is threefold. First, you've displayed a substantial lack of knowledge of that which you edit. You are introducing many major factual errors into the article. You assert Iceland had a sovereign default. That is a major wrong claim. You suggest Friedman's monetarist policy was at the key to Oddson's political program. That is an absurd claim. Careless/clueless editors create unnecessary work for other editors to correct them. Second, the sources you cite are suspect. Lewis is a journalistic author known for sell to a mass audience. His analysis does not seem to be widely recognised as authorative. Kolb is an unknown. The sources for the claims do not appear to meet the WP:RS requirement. Third, and most importantly, you seem to be on the well known left-wing political mission to associate Oddsson, and in turn Friedman, with the financial crash. Whatever the merit of that, and I'm not countering it, your edits do not meet WP:NPOV requirements, as there are other important views on this development which you seem content to leave at the margins. Editors with such traits, who do not seem to approach the editing in a fair and balanced manner, are advised to leave the editing of sensitive and potentially controversial encyclopedia articles of living persons to those with the required knowledge and approach. If you want to improve your editing, based on the above constructive criticisms, then power to you. Otherwise, you should consider participating in a debating forum on this topic, as that would then be your main interest. Wikipedia is certainly not the place for such debates.Hindentown (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Milton Friedman influence