Iceland to elect citizens' panel to rewrite constitution

[brentspeak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/26/iceland-elect-citizens-rewrite-constitution

Iceland to elect citizens' panel to rewrite constitution

Election will select up to 31 citizens to form constitutional assembly in direct democracy experiment

guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 November 2010 18.48 GMT

Iceland is to review its constitution in a unique experiment in direct democracy that will see citizens forming a new people's assembly.

An election tomorrow will select up to 31 citizens who will form the constitutional assembly that will convene early next year. Those elected will receive a salary equal to that of Iceland's MPs while the review takes place.

One candidate, Thorvaldur Gylfason, a professor of economics at the University of Iceland, said the country needed a fresh start after its economic implosion in 2008. "We need to ensure that the sort of malpractice and negligence that… led to the collapse of the Icelandic economy two years ago, cannot happen again."

Berghildur Erla Bergthorsdottir, the spokeswoman for the organising committee, said: "This is the first time in the history of the world that a nation's constitution is reviewed in such a way."

Also, unlike the US, Iceland was smart enough not to bail out its corrupt bankers: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-26/iceland-faring-much-better-after-permitting-banks-to-fail-grimsson-says.html

[scarletwoman]

1. Iceland is a special country, it takes some hard-headed practical people to survive in such a place.

They are not so easily scammed as we USians are.

[Hannah Bell]

2. more like, there are only 300,000 of them. that's smaller than seattle.

[scarletwoman]

10. It's still 300,000 hard-headed practical people who are determined to uphold their own democracy

and their own freedom. I find it inspiring and I wish them all the best.

[Hannah Bell]

12. no, it's 300,000 people who have more power relative to their government because of the

small size of their total population & the resultant smaller distance between their elites & the general population.

"hard-headed" is *your* contribution.

[scarletwoman]

13. Very true, good point.

And I'm quite aware that "hard-headed" is *my* contribution, since I used it in my very first post.

I'm quite fond of the Icelanders, I find their history and their language fascinating, and their political culture admirable.

As I said above, I wish them the best.

sw

[Hannah Bell]

14. weren't you the person who wanted them to pay back the money so poor british

pensioners wouldn't starve?

my apologies if i'm misremembering.

[scarletwoman]

15. No, I most certainly am not. It's been quite some time since I've seen any Iceland threads at all,

but I've never once posted anything other than rooting for the Icelanders to tell the banksters to go pound sand.

I was wondering why you seemed to want to pick an argument with me, I'm glad to know it's because you've apparently confused me with someone else.

Apology accepted.

[Hannah Bell]

16. maybe that's it. getting old & forgetful. i think there *is* another person i confuse you with,

now that i think about it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Well, that could be me

Because I have taken the position that the overseas savers whose accounts were guaranteed by the Icelandic government up to €20,000 should eventually be paid back by the Icelandic government (ie the Icelandic govt should repay the UK and Dutch governments who stepped in to pay it when Iceland couldn't) - see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4296575&mesg_id=4296628 and other posts in the thread.

It's a question of how the remaining assets are used to pay that, and whether any interest is paid on the effective loan - I favour using interpretations favourable to Iceland on those points.

[Hannah Bell]

18. no, it's a different poster, & i remember who now. confusion because of a similar

trope in the names -- similar to me, at least.

[BzaDem]

3. Just because the smart thing to do in Iceland's case was to not bail out banks

does not mean that would be smart to do here. In fact, the depression that would result would be so great that no US President would ever allow our banking system to collapse (even if that would be the right thing to do in a country like Iceland). Even a President Ralph Nader would not allow the US banks to collapse, no matter how much he said otherwise in a hypothetical campaign.

People who think we should have let our banks collapse are simply do not understand economics. That's all there is to it. Despite many bad decisions, sometimes representative democracy saves the people from themselves.

[brentspeak]

6. Please explain how the banking system would have collapsed had Goldman Sachs been allowed to fail

Goldman is an investment bank -- no depositors.

Economist Dean Baker on http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/18/us-economy-bank-bailout">"Was the bank bailout necessary?"

[BzaDem]

7. So? You think a company not having depositors means its collapse could not collapse the system?

AIG didn't have depositors. Yet if AIG failed, the world's banking system would fail, because the worlds banking system was only solvent because they had CDS insurance from AIG on the debt they owned.

The truth is, if everyone loses confidence in everyone else's ability to pay back on their debt, economic activity plunges and the resulting depression would make the 30s look like a walk in the park. In today's world, the deposit/non-desposit distinction has little to do with it.

[Odin2005]

4. I love those guys!

Don't fuck with the descendants of the vikings!

[defendandprotect]

5. Bail outs were one of the greatest financial coups ever pulled off .....

Thanks, Bush/Obama --!!

[Withywindle]

8. I don't think electing a panel to rewrite the national constitution would be a good idea here.

Just look at the makeup of Congress (House and Senate) after the last election. You want that quality of yahoo messing with the Constitution?

[BzaDem]

9. Exactly. We have representative government for a reason.

If we had a commission to rewrite our constitution, the first clause would likely be a balanced budget amendment.

Sounds reasonable to most people, right?

Sure, it sounds reasonable on its face. But that doesn't mean it IS reasonable. A balanced budget amendment would dramatically harm our ability to get out of recessions.

[glinda]

11. Chances are they will pick highly educated people though. Not here. Just nuts.