29 | November | 2010 | Northern Blog-O-Sphere

-The Greatest Christmas City in the North

Front Cover of the local Newspaper - Fremover - today. It reads -Greatest Christmas city in the North

That is the proud statement from Åsunn Lyngedal in today’s edition of the local newspaper Fremover (today’s issue can be bought by clicking here). The pictures inside the newpaper of the annual lighting of the Chistmas Spruce tells us that, yes there might be something there in that statement! The council of shopowners has bought a totally new set of Christmas decorations, with some beautiful light displays.

This is a important boost for those overly stretched citizens of this overly stretched municipality, after the mayor, more or less gambled the entire income of all hydroelectric energy for the next fifteen years by taking a loan from an American investment house, Terra Securities. And the mayor lost the gamble thus hurtling our society “off the cliff”. Did it have any consequence for her and her total lack of pure and simple common sense? Nope, she is still in power…

This city, booming with high-tech industries and optimism, suddenly got the news: because of the financial scandal, there is to be an extreme increase in income taxes and other taxes. Schools, roads, homes for the elderly, kindergartens and streetlights (duh! in one of the darkest cities in the winter) will all feel the knife in a desperate attempt to get rid of the debt of three quarters of a billion kroner. That’s some 700.000.000. kroner divided with a population of 18.000.

There is a program on Discovery Channel, with three ex-swindlers show you the tricks of the trade. They always end their programs with the phrase: –If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is. Maybe the mayor should have watched that show once and a while, and maybe this entire misery could have been avoided.