First Iceland, then the World!

[autorank]

First Iceland, then the World!

By Michael Collins

"The public is angry. Why should the public pay for the bankers' mistakes?"
— Iceland blogger Halldor Sigurdsson

Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn't fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland's 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each.

Iceland's national referendum was the first opportunity for the people of any nation to vote directly on who pays when the financial elite fail.

As citizens voted, Iceland's Prime Minister was dismissing the importance of the vote and promising to negotiate a payment scheme obligating citizen subsidies for bad debt created by Iceland's beyond-bad bankers.

Iceland's size and the very dire circumstances offer a focused preview for citizens around the world. The banks make bad deal after bad deal. When they're about to fail, the government steps in with a taxpayer bailout. It doesn't matter which faction of the narrow political spectrum is in charge. The message is starkly clear -- when the banks fail, you pay.

This article may be reproduced in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.



Link: http://www.apj.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2864&Itemid=2

[Ozymanithrax]

1. On a story I heard this morning it said that the Government was going back...

to renogiate the repayment. The refferendum certainly allowed the people their say, but the deal isn't over.

[girl gone mad]

12. The people have spoken.

Arrogant politicians ignore the public's verdict at their peril.

[Ozymanithrax]

17. That is true, though the electorate is fickle...

The story was on Public Radio. The government is concerned with other issues, inlcuding their push to join the European Union, preasure from European governments, and the continuing collapse of their economy.

[girl gone mad]

22. The icelandic electorate is not fickle.

They have opposed bailouts of foreign banking interests from day 1. If Prime Minister Sigurdardottir tries to override the will of the people, she will quickly be out on her ass.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. This isn't about bailing out foreign banking interests

It's about how the deposits of foreign savers in Icelandic banks are refunded (they've already been refunded; this is strictly about how the money the British and Dutch governments (ie their taxpayers' money) gave to bail out the Icelandic government's deposit insurance scheme is repaid - whether interest is due, for instance).

[girl gone mad]

55. Iceland rejected a proposal to cover losses triggered by the failure of a private bank.

"Icesave" would have obliged the island to take on $5.3 billion, or 45 percent of last year’s economic output, in loans from the U.K. and the Netherlands to compensate the two countries for depositor losses stemming from the collapse of Landsbanki Islands hf - a private investment bank - more than a year ago.

The people have no desire to cover the losses of foreigners who foolishly gambled that the carry trade would continue indefinitely.

[muriel_volestrangler]

64. But that guarantee was made by an Icelandic law of 1999

You may say it's foolish to have trusted Icelandic law, but I think the savers may have assumed the Icelandic government and their own regulators knew what they were doing. Back in August 2008, for instance, the Icelandic regulator was saying there was no problem at Landsbanki, the parent of Icesave: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2528425520080814

[autorank]

74. This is a big part of the problem

The Icelandic central bank says it's all good and the Dutch and English regulators say so also.

Landsbanki Islands HF had about $12 bil (US) in profits from 2005-2007. Where did that go? That's one thing that will come out of this.

In the case of Kaupthing, Iceland's biggest bank, here's what happened right before they failed:

"The papers appear to cast light on Kaupthing's highly unusual lending practices just two weeks before the Icelandic system failed last October, wiping out millions of pounds of savings deposited by UK local authorities and charities.

"It reveals that its highest loans, totalling more than €6.4bn (£5.45bn), was given to companies connected to just six clients, four of whom were major shareholders in the company. Kaupthing granted some of these loans with partial or no collateral, the largest of which was given to Exista, its biggest shareholder with a 22pc stake." http://tinyurl.com/yzzovfo

It's not like the British financial community didn't have indications that there was something wrong with Iceland's financial system. The good news is that the people of Britain and Iceland are not going after each other. There was a lot of sympathy for the Icelanders when the "terrorist" acts were used to freeze assets.

[Liberal_in_LA]

23. I heard that also. The people have spoken.

[truedelphi]

26. For some reason, some people do not want to hear that

"The people have spoken."

Could it be that if it happens in Iceland, it happens here?

And as far as other nations so generously offering their Capital to put Iceland right, I imagine that the motives for that generosity were more about the officials in those nations remaining loyal to their Big Banks. These days, the Criminal Political Class has to keep itself tied in nicely with the Upper One Percent of Bankers. And so what if their actions devalue the workers' wages in those nations that their actions "help out?"

It reminds me of the Bill Clinton Administration's generosity in his giving our Twenty billion bucks worth of Bailouts to Mexico.

That action soon devalued the Mexican worker's situation, such that those making 87 cents an hour were making 42 cents an hour.

But hey, it kept Bill Baby in good with the Big Banking league. And now he goes around the world snarfing up every other penny that people donate to his and Poppy's "Charity Efforts." Only by having such a "legit" charity operating can a family go from being broke in 2000 to being worth over one hundred million in 2007.

Power to the Political Class!

[autorank]

96. Bloomberg Agrees!

See video http://tinyurl.com/ykfw7ea

[Oregone]

2. If only

Its all going to be ok now

[autorank]

77. Yes, but maybe not now;) Here's a great video site on the protests

http://www.youtube.com/dorisig

He's quoted in the full article. Here's his blog.

http://iceland-dori.blogspot.com/

Cool stuff.

[leftstreet]

3. '...Icelanders are hitting the streets on a regular basis...'

The very good news is that Icelanders are providing real analysis and hitting the streets on a regular basis to protest the big con pulled by their leaders and financial elite. This is a sample of the vibrant dialog of the people who choose to fight back.

:applause:

[autorank]

6. They're not going quietly into the midnight sun!

There is a lot to write about concerning the civil protests. The Icelanders are shit kickers when they're screwed over and they're quite aware of the screwing. God bless them! More power!

[Me.]

24. Neither Are The Greeks

What's it going to take to get people fired up here?

[DemReadingDU]

67. To get people fired up here...

People here are too complacent. Many would rather watch mindless TV, listen to iPods, etc. Many are content getting their unemployment checks and food stamps. BUT at some point, this financial global Ponzi will implode and we will all become like Bernie Madoff victims. THEN people will have nothing, and become hungry and desperate. AND that's when people will get fired up.

[maryf]

83. Kill the TV's...

my dream action is to "disable" every tv in the country...People gotta start talking to their neighbors again too...

[autorank]

73. When they pound us down a bit more.

It's the pain factor. It's all on us. There are no leaders telling the real truth except Kucinich and a couple of others. We're getting the leadership happy face and the opposition, just cut taxes and it's all good face. What a bunch of bozos. The problem is that the 'elite isn't that smart. In fact, they're "low man on the totem pole." (See below;)

[maryf]

81. sadly the dummies are in charge of education too..

and its all about multiple guess tests, nothing about thinking or creative problem solving...We have to start talking to the young too, because the schools are being stripped of all capacity to teach...

[puebloknot]

35. "...and they're quite aware of the screwing." Might that mean ...

... that home-schooling is not in vogue in Iceland, and the population actually have awareness?

[autorank]

40. They're aware that they are suffering

All the PR and happy faces can't hide that from people. That's the difference. What's happening there is "collapse" of the economy with no hope but decades of involuntary servitude to the "debt masters" of international finance - the very same people who brought us the crisis in the first place!

Amazing, isn't it!

:hi:

[puebloknot]

103. You and Michael Moore are eating away at my "Happy"!

I just saw Capitalism: A Love Story for the second time last night.

I got that feeling again that we're living in a slow-motion movie, moving like the flight attendants in 2001: A Space Odyssey, weighed down and unable or unwilling to stand up and take to the barricades.

Naomi Klein wouldn't think what you've described is "amazing." She would say it's becoming more and more the norm. But there are pockets of resistance around the world -- Iran of recent note, and South America in various locales.

There are many voices (yours among them) crying "Fire" in a crowded theater because there really is a fire, but nobody seems to be getting up and heading for the exits.

Money corrupts, and absolute money corrupts absolutely! (To coin a phrase.)

Thanks for this. Good reading, as usual.

[Brickbat]

4. They have the privilege of saying no, which they did. Now, if 90% of them refuse to pay it when the

bill comes, that would be something. Because the cost will still get passed down to them, somehow.

[autorank]

7. Right - that's next

The PM dismissed the vote as it occurred. So she's next in the focus of the protesters.

There's no way that the people can pay. They need to refuse. They're fighting our fight right now.

It will come here -- the final beat down so everyone is carrying so much debt, they give up. Look at student loans - they're a crime and there are no jobs anyway. How do those get paid back.

When catastrophic financial conditions and inordinate debt are created intentionally, it's a crime.
No obligation to pay it back. Just get it back...

[Brickbat]

11. I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't think we're there, yet.

[autorank]

41. Not there yet, you're right. But's it's where it ends up,

unless we want to life like serfs, without any doubt.

We'll get there but it will get very ugly before it happens, I'm afraid. No truth tellers at the top.

[Joe the Liberal]

5. The banks will get the money, they always find a way. n/t

[autorank]

42. It's called "debt" - that yoke around everyone else's neck. n/t

[damyank913]

87. Agreed, someones gonna cover that debt.

Probably the US.

[bridgit]

8. ^5

:kick:

[autorank]

9. THNX

and a BIG THANK YOU to the people of Iceland ... truth tellers in action.

[bridgit]

16. Thank you - its been sad to watch Iceland's conservative cadre sucker-up to Goldman-Sachs/AIG, etc's

pimp my ride/flip my house forms of quick money on fake paper at someone else's risk...gee, where have we heard that one :shrug:

With the privatization of the banking sector, completed in 2000, Iceland’s banks used substantial wholesale funding to finance their entry into the local mortgage market and acquire foreign financial firms, mainly in Britain and Scandinavia…In just five years, the banks went from being almost entirely domestic lenders to becoming major international financial intermediaries. In 2000, says Richard Portes, a professor of economics at London Business School, two-thirds of their financing came from domestic sources and one-third from abroad. More recently—until the crisis hit—that ratio was reversed. But as wholesale funding markets seized up, Iceland’s banks started to collapse under a mountain of foreign debt.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2008/10/iceland_goes_ba.html

[EFerrari]

10. K&R

Thanks, autorank!

[Gin]

13. what would have happened if we did not bail out the banks?

we didn't save anything with a bailout ....we just perpetuated a corrupt system....how bad would it have been if they were allowed to fail?

[EFerrari]

14. "We" had no choice. That's just fiction.

"They" are firmly in charge of our government which means, our tax money. "We" are just hostages at this point, as far as I can tell.

[omega minimo]

18. "Hostages" is such an ugly word

The FEMA camps are really very nice ........

[EFerrari]

20. You won't live longer but the formaldehyde will let you look better longer.

[omega minimo]

21. and the pyres will burn better.

[truedelphi]

32. Thank you for using your usual truth-sensing intellect, and doing it

As you usually do, doing it concisely

[truedelphi]

31. We could not have stood by and done nothing.

But instead of doing nothing, we GAVE AWAY TRILLIONS -- with no stipulations in place.

But like Issa and Kucinich have testified, the proper way of handling the needed Re-organization/Bailout would have been to follow those laws that were already in place, from the S & L crisis in the late eighties.

What needed to happen was this: distribute the 700 some billions of dollars to regional state-chartered banks, in every section of the nation. And as that happens, make sure that the stipulations and regulations in place FORCE those monies to be loaned out to all businesses, from the small mom and pop stores to the larger enterprises.

Instead, what the Bush/Obama Bailout did was to GIVEAWAY the seven hundred some billion bucks to the top four or five banks, using AIG as a pass through. And many of the inner circle were given money twice - once from AIG and then again from the Federal Reserve. That is why Fourteen Trillion and counting is GONE from our Treasury.

Anyway, by late October 2008, Obama was realizing the anger that this Bailout was causing. the average person KNEW that the money was not going to trickle down, especially since int the Bush/Obama Bailout there were no stipulations or regulations.

Obama sensed this rising tide of anger. He was quite pleased with himself, because part of the deal that he made was that the media would not mention his part in the Bailout, i.e. how he was the one that got so many Democratic Senators aboard until after the election.

But while still campaigning for our votes, he had to address the problem of the Bailout. So he told Wisconsin audiences in Oct 2008 that if the Big Banksters did not play fair and distribute via loans the money back to Main Street (after all,t his is where the money came from), then he would IN HIS VERY FIRST YEAR, institute severe regulations of the Bailout Monies.

However, even as it became very apparent that the Bailout Monies were not in any way shape or form going back to Main Street, he only SCOLDED the Bankers.

[DemReadingDU]

68. The system would have collapsed sooner

and we'd be dealing with the fallout to better things. But the bailouts perpetuated the fraud and corruption of the global financial Ponzi, so the longer it continues, the worse it will be when the Ponzi implodes.
:(

[autorank]

108. Exactly

And the bailouts rewarded bad behavior, thus causing the behavior to be repeated - to our great expense.

:thumbsup:

[malaise]

15. Bravo Icelanders

Let the robber barons pay for their own scams.

[Cetacea]

19. Iceland, home to the Lennon Imagine Peace Tower

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:hPXkHSoOvb_2WM:

[mdmc]

28. I did not know that..

[Odin2005]

27. GO ICELAND!!!

Stick those banksters on a long boat and light it on fire! :evilgrin:

[HeresyLives]

29. Icelanders and Greeks will have to pay their debts.

Iceland is just hoping to negotiate better terms.

[autorank]

44. Correction - these are not "their" debts

The Icelanders didn't run a crooked operation in two foreign countries. A private bank did.

The Icelanders didn't ask their former president to promise that the government would cover
British and Dutch depositers, i.e., the population of Iceland.

Same for Greece. The public didn't endorse secret deals and deception by their leaders, yet
they're expected to pay.

When the innocent become victims, then the perpetrators win. That's what's happening now.

The public of both nations don't owe anybody anything.

[HeresyLives]

46. Yes, actually, they are.

The govt ran up the debts, it's up to the govt to pay them.

That would be the citizens.

[autorank]

47. The government is covering the depositer losses of a private bank.

Check out the article and google a bit. It's not a government expenditure. Icesave, a division
of a private bank, went belly up and British and Dutch people lost all of their deposits. The
government has "volunteered" to cover the debt, thus obligating the citizens, all of them.

[HeresyLives]

62. Icelandic banks, backed by Icelands govt

Iceland would have gone bankrupt trying to cover the depositors...and they would have sued...so the Brits and Dutch loaned Iceland the money.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Though the promise to cover the deposits was back in 1999

when the deposit scheme was set up by law (well before Icesave was started to get British, then Dutch savers). I'm sure the average voter wouldn't have paid attention to it - who'd know the details of banking laws in their country unless it's their job? - but they did have the chance to vote out the government that was deregulating, but the RW Independence Party got the largest vote in all the elections up to and including 2007.

[autorank]

79. That's the problem. Yes, there was a guarantee but

...what's the meaning of a law and guarantee that can never be enforced? That's why the reliability of the representation is an issue in understanding this. The Icelandic system was not reliable as a guarantor if things went wrong. The Dutch and British regulators should have known or knew this to be the case yet they allowed Iceland's central bank to regulate Icesave and for this product to be sold to citizens of the UK and the Netherlands.

The people elected the leaders who made this deal under the assumption that they were not fools or crooks or both. The guarantee was solely for the financial community and those who benefited in order for the overseas banking to be technically legal.

British and Dutch regulators saying that that it's OK to have allowed Iceland to guarantee the deposits is as reasonable as it would have been for the SEC to endorse the 1980's Vancouver Stock Exchange as OK since the Canadian authorities allowed it to function there. (The Vancouver Exchange was cleaned up some time ago after it was exposed fully.)

The laws are written by people who are virtual employees of the financial elite. How do you regulate Goldman Sachs when the government is riddled with high level Goldman executives all over the government? Hence, much of the disaster we see emerging is based on "legal" actions (e.g., campaign contributions are "legal" and not considered bribes in return for favorable votes, etc.). That's our problem here, as well.

[formercia]

30. If this isn't a case of socializing risk and privatizing profit, I don't know what is.

Fuck the bankers.

Let this be a lesson for bank reform.

[HeresyLives]

33. I don't think you understand the situation.

Bankers aren't being hurt by this.

The govts of the UK and Netherlands, and ultimately their taxpayers are.

[AllentownJake]

39. They should have ironed out the details of a repayment

Before they went waltzing into Iceland, and there had to be a reason they took the waltz in.

Very few foreign governments do things for other nations out of the goodness of their hears.

I'm guessing the initial crisis has UK and Dutch banker fingers all over it, but call be an evil cynic.

[HeresyLives]

43. Nobody waltzed anywhere.

They saved Iceland from bankruptcy.

[AllentownJake]

53. Brittish and Dutch fingerprints

No one saves someone else at their own expense without a compelling reason (see Greece) particularly the Dutch and British governments. What was the Dutch and British Governments reasons.

[muriel_volestrangler]

57. To stop a panic on their own banks (and perhaps one or 2 others, like Ireland's)

If they'd said to the savers "it's up to you to get the Icelandic deposit insurance scheme to pay up - we'll do the higher amounts we said we would, but that first €20,000 is your and Iceland's problem" (FWIW, most of the savers had less than €20,000 on deposit) then there could have been a general bank panic, involving either their domestic banks, or also banks from other countries that dealt with customers in the UK or Netherlands (eg Irish banks in the UK; I think Belgian banks are fairly active in the Netherlands too, but I'm not sure on that).

So rather than leaving the savers to wait years to get their money back, and risking the bank panic as the people lose confidence in the ability of banks to give their money back, they decided to honour the guarantee the Icelandic government scheme had made.

[AllentownJake]

59. So they propped up their fraudulent systems in Ireland and the UK

Seems like they got paid.

[HeresyLives]

60. I don't know where you're getting this idea

that somehow the Brits and Dutch are at fault here, but it's simply not true.

They rescued depositors who had lost their life savings.

[AllentownJake]

61. I highly doubt that the British and Dutch went running into Iceland

out of the collective goodness of their hearts.

[HeresyLives]

63. It was their depositors who lost the money,

and without it being covered, Iceland would have defaulted...gone bankrupt.

[muriel_volestrangler]

66. No, not 'fraudulent', just vulnerable to a bank run

Many US banks have crashed. Are you saying they're all fraudulent? Would you therefore stop the FDIC from paying back the savings deposited in them?

[AllentownJake]

69. Right now

I'd say most banks are legally fraudulent due to mark to market on the loans and the but loads of unrecognized losses, that were recognized gains when things were good.

[rhett o rick]

98. There is no benefit to having FDIC insurance if you are going to let the banks

speculate with depositors money. The whole idea with FDIC is that the government will back the bank against loses as long as the bank follows the regulations. But when republicans change the regulations, allowing the banks to speculate and fail, the system collapses.

Without tough bank regulations, the system will collapse. Bailouts only postpone the inevitable.

[autorank]

52. That's emerging

The people of Iceland don't owe the debt of stupid bankers. Simple as that.

Sweden and Norway bailed out another now broke Icelandic bank under similar circumstances.
They were honorable enough to recognize that as the sovereign nation, they were responsible for
what happened to their citizens. They should have stopped it at the outset and the knew it. But
they did the right thing.

The neocon British and Dutch governments, however, are bereft of honor.

[autorank]

48. Au contraire - you're unaware of the collapse of Iceland's economy

The Dutch and British governments covered a total of $5 bil (US). They sneeze that out on a weekly basis. The bankers got their money out, you can be sure. There are just a few hundred of them and the regular citizens working at the bank are still staffing it. You're talking about "bankers" hurt - and that means 5-10 fat cats that own the bank and knew it was a rotten scheme. If they're hurt, that's how it works.

Read up on this. You're way off.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. The Iceland vote doesn't hurt any bankers at all

It's about how much of the bill for refunding individuals' deposits in the banks ends up with the Icelandic taxpayers, or with the British and Dutch taxpayers. It won't end up with any bankers. The bank went bust, and Iceland nationalised the remains of it.

If you think this is a lesson for bank reform, then the lesson you're advocating is "get rid of the FDIC".

[autorank]

49. Thanks muriel n/t

[autorank]

45. Substituting "securitization" with "socialization"

They're relentless, these bankers. They'll do anything to avoid responsibility and keep their
license to steal.

[formercia]

88. That's why crooks incorporate

That way, when things go bust via control fraud, the perps don't have any personal financial responsibility, unless someone with balls and not on the take decides to use clawback provisions to recover assets.

[upi402]

34. milton friedman utopia -add greenspan too, n/t

[autorank]

50. His theories are like some hulking monster that straddles the globe. n/t

[Mike 03]

37. This is a fascinating debate. My view all along is: Wait and see what happens if something like

AIG is allowed to fail. Or Citigroup. Or Greece.

I don't think that would be good for "Main Street" at all, or the unemployment rate here in the U.S..

[sendero]

85. You know..

.... that is a convenient argument. But the fact is we would have been better off unwinding AIG and the big banks than what is eventually going to happen anyway.

The idea that something is "too big to fail" is ludicrous. If the money is not there, it is not there and printing and funneling doesn't fix one damned thing.

Our economy is headed for the shitter. That is what happens when you have a debt bubble. No country has EVER escaped that fate, and we're not either. All we are doing is making it easier for the perpetrators to grab one last handful of cash before everything falls apart.

I never expected the politicians to actually do the right thing but I expected them to do SOME right things. Right now, we need a new Glass-Stegall and we need it now, and Obama is putzing around as usual. It's sickening.

[Peace Patriot]

38. Democracy will continue to be an illusion here until we restore vote counting that everyone can see

and understand.

If not a delusion.

The privatized, corporatized, 'TRADE SECRET' code vote 'counting' systems all over the U.S. are the final blockade to reform. Until we peel that back, we do not have a democracy. We have a corporate/war profiteer tyranny.

We don't get to vote on issues nationally, as they just did in Iceland on bankster bailouts, but even if we had that right it wouldn't matter. Our voting system is completely non-transparent, and it is now owned basically by one very far rightwing corporation, ES&S, which just bought Diebold and acquired an 85% monopoly of U.S. voting systems. ES&S was initially funded by far rightwing multibillionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals! That's the sort of people who are 'counting' all our votes, almost everywhere, with 'TRADE SECRET' code and virtually no audit/recount controls.

Combined with the filthy campaign contribution system, the filthy corporate lobbying system, the corpo-fascist media and the corpo-fascist Supreme Court, we, the people of the U.S., have no say any more in what happens here, and many of our people are furthermore beaten down and demoralized and relentlessly propagandized in both subtle and egregious ways by the corpo-fascist media. One of the subtler beat-down's is the corpo-fascist media trumpeting far rightwing views as 'mainstream' and promoting outright criminals like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove as honored elder statesmen.

But there is nothing we can do about the filthy campaign money/lobbying system, nor the dreadful media, without transparent vote counting. It is the bottom line of democracy. It is our main power as a people. And it is gone.

Getting it back is still doable, since control over voting systems still resides at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence--but it will take a widespread, massive citizen campaign to get it done.

Meanwhile, the illusion/delusion that you and I have a say, and that anyone inside "the Beltway" gives a goddamn what we think, continues. I see it here at DU every day--people earnestly advocating policy positions and candidates as if we had a real democracy. I see it in myself. It is important that we discuss things with each other, and help inform each other, but ultimately our free speech is futile, since we cannot verify ANY election in the U.S., and since ES&S has the capability--the EASY capability--to fix ANY election. That's the situation. We are in the midst of the illusion/delusion of democracy. It is very hard to see out of it, and it is rather shocking how successful the ploy of 'TRADE SECRET' code in the voting system has been.

This is WHY we can't jettison the banksters. This is WHY we can't have simple, easy, single payer health insurance or a national system based on Medicare. This is WHY we have been drained of all of our common resources to enrich war profiteers and multinational corporations. This is WHY we are suffering an induced economic Depression. This is WHY ordinary people are getting no help. We have a program spun all around us that is designed to destroy our great, prosperous, progressive middle class, and we cannot see the filaments of the web. The last filament--the democracy-killing filament--is 'TRADE SCRET' vote 'counting,' and most of us can't see that either. It is destroying this country just as if we had been wrapped up by a poisonous spider and tucked into its web for lunch.

I DO think it's still important to try to get good candidates elected--we may succeed here and there--and to vigorously discuss the issues and try to be heard--but we really must understand that we are never, ever going to have a good government again --or any kind of "New Deal"--until we restore transparent vote counting, as the first and most vital step to busting through this corpo-fascist illusion/delusion and restoring real democracy.

[amborin]

51. K&R

[branders seine]

56. voting

how quaint

[Joe Chi Minh]

58. A very succinct and trenchant exposure of their villainy, if I may say so, Mike.

I would strongly urge the Icelandic and Greek peoples to INSIST that the bonuses paid out to senior management in the financial sectors of the UK and the Netherlands, be clawed back in full by their respective governments that bailed out their entities, and those sums set off against the debts of the respective victims of their criminal recklessness, before they agree any kind of repayment schedule.

[HeresyLives]

65. There was no 'villainy', nothing was illegal or immoral about it.

Iceland now owes the money, and has to pay up.

Same with Greece.

[Joe Chi Minh]

101. Your idea of villainy and mine would scarcely match. I'm not talking about formal

criminality - fraud is, in any event, purported to be very difficult to prove, though statistics are a primary aid.

When bankers behave like half-wits IN FINANCIAL MATTERS don't DARE tell me there was no villainy involved! Capitalism, itself is villainous, you nut! Utterly, totally psychopathic.

Keynes knew a thing or two, and there is no depth opprobium I could heap on the bankers, politicians and capitalism, generally, that would not pale in comparison with his words on the matter.

[stevedeshazer]

70. Great job.

I hope the world follows Iceland's example.

[earth mom]

71. Go Icelanders!

:yourock:

[autorank]

72. Amen!

They're standing up. There's a protest every day somewhere in Iceland. They're rokken.

[HeresyLives]

75. And if it was your life savings that went missing,

you'd actually find out what happened here, and expect Icelanders to cough up.

[autorank]

78. One last time - the depositers already got their money back

This was a private bank. There's no real claim on the people of Iceland for this. Dutch and British regulators had many warning signs even before the Icesave service started up. But they ignored them. Then they tagged the government of Iceland with the repayment of their coverage of investors. It's $5.0 bil, not that bad if you're GB or the Netherlands. But if you have 300,000 people only, then it ruins your economy. That's just what the Brits and Dutch leaders and bankers did - just ruined an economy that was already beaten down.

The investors got their money back from their national regulators who should have been doing their jobs.

[HeresyLives]

91. Yes, Britain and Holland paid them.

And now Iceland owes Britain and Holland for the loan.

[autorank]

93. The people Iceland don't owe anybody anything - see Bloombert

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn talks about the Icelandic vote on paying back the U.K. and the Netherlands the so-called Icesave loan, needed to cover depositor losses at failed lender Landsbanki Islands hf. He speaks with Rishaad Salamat and Francine Lacqua in London.

http://agonist.org/iceland#comment-207819

[HeresyLives]

94. Yeah, they do.

And since no one at Bloomberg saw any of this coming...why are you even reading them?

Do you think they got any smarter in the last year?

[autorank]

102. Are you kidding? 58 ARTICLES sinc e 2008 (the start) from Bloomberg

Coverage from the start - 2008 - see links below.

Google News Search "ICESAVE"
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?um=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=icesave+site%3Abloomberg.com&cf=all&scoring=n

Bloomberg News Search "ICESAVE"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=agxo.0xqPnwc&pid=20601087

As the Icelanders say to the British government


Try reading some of those Bloomberg articles. They're first rate.

And check out Iceland's blogs listed at the link for the article. They're quite good.

[western mass]

84. If someone stole my life savings

I'd expect the robber to pay. Not the people who live in his neighborhood.

[earth mom]

95. Bingo!

:thumbsup:

[autorank]

97. Bingo #2!!!!!!

Exactly!!!!!!!!1

[muriel_volestrangler]

100. If only it were that simple. This isn't a Bernie Madoff situation

There are investigations going on to see if anyone did anything illegal, but it wasn't fraud that caused Landsbanki to fail - it was the failure of Lehman and AIG, and they were too extended to be able to keep trading as credit dried up over the world. It's possible that fraud may have contributed to that vulnerability, but it's also probably a significant amount of overconfidence and idiocy that did it.

The thing is, to use your analogy, the saver had a theft insurance policy with the "people in the neighborhood". Therefore they expect them to honour the policy. By saying "sorry, we insured too much", the Icelandic people are trying to behave like AIG did - they insured too much, and couldn't pay.

There are in fact assets of the old Landsbanki that should eventually cover most of the money owed. The higher figures being bandied about about how much it would cost tend to ignore this. Probably the main thing that needs to be settled is the interest rate on what is effectively a loan while the assets are sold off.

Here's a good blog explaining what's being discussed: http://bjarnimax.blog.is/blog/bjarnimax/entry/1003708

[Doremus]

76. Send a bill to Milt Friedman's estate.

[Vidar]

80. K&R.

[maryf]

82. Yay Iceland!!

Yay, Michael Collins! K&R

[pleah]

86. K&R

[newtothegame]

89. Here's where I see the problem. I love the idea of voting for everything...

but the whole reason why we don't is because we need to protect the interests of the minority voice. That is why things like abortion would never come to a vote; the neocons would spend big bucks to round up the votes to outlaw it.

This vote in Iceland is a perfect example of this. I am NOT arguing that Icelanders should pay for the mistakes of big bankers, but that percentage that voted FOR doing this has no voice. If we want to protect the minority voice in America, we can't move this direction.

[Cetacea]

90. Now if they'd knock of the whaling I'd really consider them as advanced

[bluesmail]

92. Absolutely fascinating discussion

:thumbsup: :hi:

[autorank]

99. It is indeed. It's a case study on our direction in the future

Of course, we've already bailed out our big banks but there's more to come, no doubt.

:hi:

[avaistheone1]

104. Wish I was in time to recommend this thread.

[autorank]

105. You kicked it so it's all good

Thanks.

:kick:

[scarletwoman]

106. So, where did the original depositors' money go? It went *somewhere* - who got it?

If there were real English Pounds and Dutch Kroner deposited, those Pounds and Kroner didn't just vanish into thin air, *somebody* ran off with them, right? *Somebody* got richer off those deposits, *somebody* used all that money for *something*, right?

Where did the money go? Who got (took) it? This is insane. The money didn't just disappear, it went into *somebody's* pockets.

The citizens of Iceland didn't steal it, why should THEY pay it back?

When the hell are the REAL thieves going to be held accountable?

[scarletwoman]

107. *kick* nt

[Kurovski]

109. Kick

:hi:

[scarletwoman]

110. What the... ?

(looking around, trying to figure out who kicked me... dammit!)

Another drive-by kick by Kurovski! You fiend!

(sneaky bastard)

Oh, I will catch up to you one of these days, mark my words...

;)
sw

[autorank]

111. It's the Mister ... er, the Master

The Ayatollah of rock 'n rollah!