News

**Galaxy** · (This post was last modified: 04-16-2012 03:36 PM by Galaxy.)

The president of Iceland sits in his study drinking tea from an immaculate china set.

"If a collapse in the financial sector can bring one of the most stable and secure democracies and political structures to his knees as happened in Iceland," Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson says to me, "then what could it do in countries that have less stable democratic and political history?"

The tiny country is unique not only in its stunning geography but also in its open democracy. This democracy was pivotal in the choice to let three giant banks fail during the financial crisis.

For Ólafur, the crisis of 2008 was personal. Once the darling of the left wing, he worked as finance minister for several years before he became president of the country in 1996, a largely ceremonial role that he's inhabited ever since. Like many in the country he was once a cheerleader for Iceland's financial sector, privatized at the start of the 21st century — and the sudden collapse was a painful reminder that Iceland was a small, isolated place.

Now, of course, most headlines we see about Iceland seem positive. Iceland is repaying its IMF loans early, unemployment is down, and growth is above average. The streets of Reykjavik seem calm and happy.

Other countries, of course, haven't been so lucky. The crisis remains front page news in Greece, Italy and Spain — countries that followed a very different response from Iceland's.

Ólafur argues that his country's strength came from recognizing the problem was not just an "economic and financial challenge", but a "profound social, political, and even judicial" challenge.

After the crisis, the country held a full judicial investigation, and went against "the prevailing economic orthodoxies of the American, European and IMF model." Ólafur says that he likes to think that the IMF learned more from Iceland during this time than vice versa.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/olafur-ra...z1sD5gEieL

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 88087 04-16-2012 03:38 PM

The people did it not this guy the people rose up with pitchforks and torches and through out their thieving govt. then they voted again and again NO to paying off the foreign bankers.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 14978 04-16-2012 03:52 PM

**Leroy Jenkins!**

5*$!

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 90661 04-16-2012 04:28 PM

LoP Guest Wrote:

The people did it not this guy the people rose up with pitchforks and torches and through out their thieving govt. then they voted again and again NO to paying off the foreign bankers.

typical politician!

**Galaxy**

BTW; the internet story about forgiving their mortgages seems to be a hoax.

**Twatwaffle** lop guest User ID: 90652 04-16-2012 04:38 PM

Galaxy Wrote:

Iceland is repaying its IMF loans early, unemployment is down, and growth is above average.

Full stop.

This is how a sovereign nation not only ends "legal" economic plunder, but retains its political sovereignty in one bold move.

The IMF model of debt-serfdom is a model for national and social suicide.

**Old Whatshisname**

I agree with what President Grimsson did. The government shouldn't be in the business of bailing out failing enterprises run by incompetent and avaricious fools, whether those enterprises are "private" banks or "public" schools.

One side effect, though, is that the people who have savings accounts in these Icelandic banks (whether Britinsh investors or Icelandic everyday citizens) would lose their money, but that's the chance you have to take.

**Old Whatshisname**

Twatwaffle Wrote:

Galaxy Wrote:
Iceland is repaying its IMF loans early, unemployment is down, and growth is above average.

Full stop.

This is how a sovereign nation not only ends "legal" economic plunder, but retains its political sovereignty in one bold move.

The IMF model of debt-serfdom is a model for national and social suicide.

The Icelanders repaying their loans early is a smart move, but how is that "ending legal plunder"? The IMF loans them money, and they're paying it back early which means less interest accruing.

I don't see much difference between that and my repaying my car loan early or doubling up on my mortgage . That's not "ending legal plunder", because a bank loan isn't "legal plunder", in the first place.

**Blueacres nsi** lop guest User ID: 76461 04-16-2012 04:57 PM

LoP Guest Wrote:

LoP Guest Wrote:
The people did it not this guy the people rose up with pitchforks and torches and through out their thieving govt. then they voted again and again NO to paying off the foreign bankers.

typical politician!

The people got an online petition going to keep the guy on for a 5th term! He wants to retire, but after 30,000 people signed it in under a month, he changed his mind. Read the full transcript of the interview, I'd give my right arm to have tis guy running Britain.

Just my 2c.

""As everybody knows now, we did not pump public money into the failed banks. We treated them like private companies that went bankrupt, and we let them fail. Some people say we did it because we didn’t have any other option, there is clearly something in that argument, but it does not change the fact that it turned out to be a wise move or whatever reason. Whereas in many other countries, the prevailing orthodoxy is you pump public money into banks and you make taxpayers responsible for the banks in the long run, and somehow treat the banks as if they are holier institutions in the economy than manufacturing companies, commercial companies, IT companies, or whatever. And I have never really understood the argument: why a private bank or financial fund is somehow holier for the well being and future of the economy than the industrial sector, the IT sector, the creative sector, or the manufacturing sector.
So if you add all of this together and throw in the devaluation of the currency as well, it’s clear that what some people have called the Icelandic model includes a number of measures and approaches that have not been adopted in other countries. On the contrary, it includes some methods in the process that go directly against what has been adopted in other countries. But the outcome is the Icelandic economy is recovering faster and more effectively than any other economy, including the British and the American that suffered from a big financial crisis in 2008.""

Says it all, really. We are so f*cked!

Heartflowers

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 82656 04-16-2012 04:58 PM

Galaxy Wrote:

Iceland is repaying its IMF loans early, unemployment is down, and growth is above average. The streets of Reykjavik seem calm and happy.

Horrifying, when do we go in to liberate them?

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 88087 04-16-2012 05:04 PM

Galaxy Wrote:

BTW; the internet story about forgiving their mortgages seems to be a hoax.

It is I posted the relevant links debunking it on that thread. The other thing is this guy to me is just a big blowhard it was THE PEOPLE who threw out the bums and THE PEOPLE who voted NO over and over again so they are the real hero's not this guy.

**Richard Eldritch**

LoP Guest Wrote:

Galaxy Wrote:
Iceland is repaying its IMF loans early, unemployment is down, and growth is above average. The streets of Reykjavik seem calm and happy.

Horrifying, when do we go in to liberate them?

**Twatwaffle** lop guest User ID: 90652 04-16-2012 05:14 PM

Old Whatshisname Wrote:

The Icelanders repaying their loans early is a smart move, but how is that "ending legal plunder"? The IMF loans them money, and they're paying it back early which means less interest accruing.

I don't see much difference between that and my repaying my car loan early or doubling up on my mortgage . That's not "ending legal plunder", because a bank loan isn't "legal plunder", in the first place.

IMF loans require that the collateral presented upon receipt of the loan proceeds is the very sovereignty of the nation itself. While the car-loan example is apt, it is the magnitude of the collateral which makes the difference.

Generally, IMF loans are last-resort options to those nations that wish to continue to play in the illusion called global finance. But they are tar-babies, designed to all-but fail, thus consigning the host countries to destitution while granting the global banking institutions which arranged the financing the assets and future labor of said nation into perpetuity.

Thus, it is a form of "legal plunder".

**Richard Eldritch** · (This post was last modified: 04-16-2012 05:19 PM by Richard Eldritch.)

Standing up to us may not be enough. This will go through the Euro courts and they'll be made to pay or leave the EU ( at vast cost to their fishing industry)
Still I agree with the Icelandians.