Imagine if the GOP congress had not obstructed Obama's infrastructure rebuilding programs.

incidentally with the same policies Paul Krugman called for.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2013/02/20/icelands-stabilized-economy-is-a-surprising-success-story/

Excerpt:

You may have heard about Iceland’s toppling economy back in 2008. As one of the hardest-hit countries at the time, Iceland’s heavily criticized method to escape veritable economic demise actually did the trick.

Faced with the possibility of financial failure, Iceland had to think on its feet. Instead of bailing out banks USA-style, the country forgave mortgage debt for the population – and completely started over from square one.

A country with a small population of roughly 320,000 citizens, Iceland‘s entire banking structure “systemically failed” in the early days of the 2008 recession. Despite the fact that Iceland is still on the road to recovery, the country ranks high as a politically and economically stable nation. Their success over the last few years has been largely under-reported, and the story behind it is quite fascinating.

Also here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/iceland-financial-recovery-banking-collapse

You may want to take a look at the timelines of all countries during the Great Recession. Many countries recovered faster than the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession_in_Europe

most. It wouldn't surprise me if they only dealt with G20 or EOCD countries Iceland is doing well, but their report also says they "stabilized" their country. I don't know if they've returned to their previous GDP. I would think so since their primary industries include fish exporting and that didn't take a big hit

They prosecuted the bankers that drove their economy into a ditch and they did not bail out the banks. Ironically they stayed truer to capitalism than we did. Adversely we employed socialist principles to save the to 1% and after the fact they (who drove us into the ditch) got richer. It's good to have friends in high places. Funny little world.

Iceland appears to have a much more unstable recovery, but yeah.

Would it be that we arrested the banksters.

The US couldn't default though. That's WWIII starting type stuff.

Recovered.