First Iceland, then the World

[Joanne98]

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.


Icelanders are struggling with a collapsed economy. Businesses are failing at a startling rate, unemployment is soaring, and the prospects for the future are simply not there. Yet the British and Dutch governments demand that their swindled citizens receive compensation from beleaguered Icelanders. Where were the British and Dutch central banks and politicians while their citizens were being fleeced? Aren't the rulers of these countries aware that the failed Icelandic bank was owned by wealth investors, not the citizens?

Continued>>

http://www.opednews.com/articles/First-Iceland-then-the-Wo-by-Michael-Collins-100307-460.html

[dkf]

1. Didn't Iceland keep the deposits for icelanders and stiff uk and netherlands depositors?

That is the unfair part

[unblock]

4. yeah, it's a bit like a bank failure in the u.s. with the fdic making u.s. depositors whole, but

leaving foreign depositors to beg their own governments for help.


this is a feel-good vote for icelanders but their government has to cover the debt or else foreign depositors will never trust iceland again.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I agree with what you say

but the fact is the rest of the world isn't hoping to join the EU. This issue is likely to keep them shut out at least for the time being.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. "little more than political theatre of the absurd"

Iceland's bizarre Icesave referendum

A recent Icelandic referendum on repaying the Icesave debt was little more than political theatre of the absurd

...
As the international media flocked to Iceland in the lead-up to the referendum, the phrase "theatre of the absurd" occurred. There seemed to be a popular misconception that the referendum was about far more serious things than it actually was – such as whether Iceland planned to repay the Icesave debt at all. In fact, Icelandic authorities had already committed to repaying the minimum deposit amount for each Icesave online account – the deal being voted on in the referendum merely concerned the terms of the repayment.

However, what made the referendum – the first in the history of the Republic of Iceland – particularly bizarre was that there was already a deal on the table that was marginally better than the one being voted on. Confused? You're not alone.

Some background: at the end of last year, the Icelandic parliament – after nearly a year of bickering – finally passed a repayment deal arrived at through negotiations with British and Dutch authorities. The deal was highly unpopular with the Icelandic public and over a quarter of the electorate signed a petition urging the Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to veto it. The president heeded the call, sending the Icesave bill to a referendum as stipulated by Icelandic law.

The government, eager to forestall the referendum, quickly invited British and Dutch negotiators back to the negotiating table. Following several days of intensive talks, the British and Dutch offered the Icelanders an improved deal over the one that the president had vetoed. Icelandic negotiators came back with a counter-offer, and talks were ongoing right up until the date of the referendum.

The referendum, on the other hand, still focused on the deal that the president had vetoed – naturally, since there was no other finalised deal on the table. However, it was clear to the Icelandic public that the UK and Netherlands were prepared to offer a better deal than the one being voted on. Hence it was highly unlikely that anyone was going to vote yes on a deal that was marginally worse than another that had since been proposed. The result was a foregone conclusion – it was only a matter of how many people would vote no. By late Sunday the results were in: 93.2% voted no, 1.8% voted yes, and 4.7% turned in an empty ballot, presumably in order to give their view of referendum's pointlessness. Invalid ballots were 0.3%.
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/08/iceland-referendum-icesave-repay

[wial]

5. That Iceland is now slaughtering more whales

doesn't speak too well of their priorities. That's the kind of unsustainable behavior that caused these problems in the first place.

[autorank]

6. T'hanks Joanne98!!!!!!!

We need to be in solidarity with the people of Iceland. They're having to pay off a debt for a private banks. How crazy is that? Well, we're doing it too!

[Vidar]

7. Bravo Iceland! Now if you'd just harpoon bankers instead of whales.