Herbert
8th January 2016, 23:27
After listening to the video below, I have some questions:
Has anyone asked an Icelander what really happened? Are the people better off? Who is making the claims about what happened?
Who were these bankers that got arrested? Has anyone looked beneath the surface at the details?
How much information was actually given to the people?
Was this a test by the Cabal to determine how gullible people really are?
Was this really the success for the people that it's claimed to be?
Or is it all another propaganda meme?
Was a Goldman Sacs former employee brought in to "fix" things?
http://removingtheshackles.blogspot.ca/2016/01/tn-special-report-iceland-meme-that.html
Is having hope based on lies and half-truths really any kind of hope?
The Economic Truth on Iceland
By Olafur Margeirsson http://icelandicecon.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-economic-truth-on-iceland.html
There are truths and untruths in the media, the blogosphere and in the minds of people when it comes to what really happened in Iceland and its, acclaimed, economic recovery. To some extent, it has gotten the stamp of some sort of an economic “Wunderkind” by defying all probabilities and becoming a poster child about how to respond to major economic crises. But to spill the beans already: the picture is not as rosy as it has been painted.
Let’s start with some of the claims. According to a less than a five minute search on the internet, Iceland:
Rather than post this long article I have included a link above.
"The article concludes: the Second Economic Crash of Iceland is around the corner. For the economic Wunderkind has cancer."
Truth be told, the major lesson Iceland has for other countries is how to keep the electronic payment system alive during a massive financial storm. That lesson has gone completely under the radar and I don’t think a single foreign entity or a central bank has picked it up as of yet!
What Is Actually going On In Iceland? http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/
by Baldur Bjarnason
Because I’m tired of you people spreading untruths
Since people continue to spread the factually dubious statement that Iceland “told creditors & IMF to go jump, nationalised banks, arrested the fraudsters, gave debt relief and is now growing very strongly, thanks” I find I have to write this here thing.
(This specific example comes from twitter but is almost identical, word for word, to the standard ‘Iceland is an economic utopia’ mantra that is being repeated ad nauseam.)
Because, for some reason, people won’t believe Icelanders when they say that the above is not quite the reality as most Icelanders experience it.
1. ICELAND TOLD IMF TO GO JUMP, GO AWAY, LEFT THE IMF PROGRAM ETC.
No it didn’t. Just look at the IMF’s country overview page for Iceland and read the reports.
https://www.imf.org/external/country/ISL/
(Too much to read? Well, boohoo. Don’t claim to know what Iceland’s and IMF’s relationship is until you have.)
Even a cursory look should tell you that Iceland didn’t throw the IMF out of the country and that the IMF’s praise for Iceland and our government is effusive and that Iceland followed the IMF’s advice to a tee. There are other details there, if you read through the archives, that are interesting, such as the fact that in several cases, especially when it came to the banks, Iceland actually went further along the libertarian axis than the IMF recommended.
2. ICELAND TOLD THE CREDITORS TO GO JUMP.
Yes and no. Iceland didn’t bail out the collapsed banks, but that wasn’t for the want of trying. If you read through the Report of the Special Investigation Commission you’d find out that the Icelandic government tried everything it could to save the banks, including asking for insane loans to pay off the banks’ debts.
The report: http://sic.althingi.is/
Most of it, and most of the really juicy stuff IMO, is only available in Icelandic, unfortunately. You can find the Icelandic version here: http://rna.althingi.is/
So the true story is that Iceland tried and tried and tried and tried as hard as we could to save the creditors. The only reason why we didn’t is that the Icelandic government, then and now, is completely incompetent.
Dumb things Icelandic officials did while trying to garner international support (mentioned in the report) :
Spin that a noncommittal but positive reply from the Russians was a loan agreement, ****ing off the Americans and the Russians resulting in no loans from either.
Not answering Alistair Darling’s phone call (he was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer or finance minister at the time). They literally put him on hold, then told him to call later and hung up.
Announcing on live TV that we were not going to help creditors, including those who had deposits, while they were in the middle of negotiations for funding to save said banks. Then having to backtrack to get any sort of help from the EU.
Lying to the governor of the Bank of England and the president of the European Central Bank about the state of the banks.
And plenty more. All in the special report. Read it if you care about what happened in Iceland. The short version is that they tried to save the banks, save the creditors and screwed up completely.
Other tidbits from the report: Icelandic MP’s received a lot of no-strings-attached free money from the banks and the key players in the banking bubble and ensuing collapse are not the same as the people who are being convicted for fraud or insider trading.
Except for two:
A ministry department head (also my namesake) who sold all of his stock soon after he attended a meeting on the state of the banks was convicted for insider trading. Baldur sakfelldur. The only reason why he was convicted is because he was too stupid to even try to cover his tracks.
And Lárus Welding, who some consider a key player and is mentioned several times in the report, was convicted yesterday and will be jailed for six months, plus three months probation. He gets to keep all the money he made and he’s going to appeal. Given the libertarian slant of the high court, his conviction is still not a certainty. The jail time he has just got in the lower courts is much much less than the prosecutor was hoping for, which does not bode well for later cases.
(A newish story on his conviction. It should work fine in google translate and you can nod along to the video, pretending to understand.)
The prime minister was found guilty of negligence in his job but was completely unpunished. No jail time, no fine, no nothing. I’d call him a scapegoat if he hadn’t actually gotten away scot-free.
Guardian: Iceland ex-PM Geir Haarde cleared of bank negligence. The Guardian piece was originally titled ‘Iceland ex-PM Geir Haarde found guilty of banking crash failure’ which is the headline that got distributed on twitter, of course, being the absolute opposite of the truth.
Icenews: Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde found not guilty
Everybody else who has been convicted to date are to the Icelandic banking bubble what Bernie Madoff is to Goldman Sachs: fraudsters who took advantage of the climate but weren’t key players in the bubble or the collapse.
It’s a bit like arresting a Nazi lieutenant when Hitler and Goebbels are still running around. What am I supposed to say to that? Well done? He’s small fry but I guess he’s a start? Pat them on the head and say better luck next time?
Bah, humbug.
(I guess the above also addresses 3. Iceland arrested the fraudsters, showing that it’s patently not true. Iceland arrested some fraudsters: the pawns, small fry, and the lackeys.)
4. ICELAND NATIONALISED THE BANKS.
This much is true. Iceland then privatised them again in record time. Two out of the three collapsed major banks in Iceland are now owned by the creditors. (“But I thought Iceland shafted the creditors?” Hah! Yeah, funny that.) The third bank, Landsbanki, is still nationalised but that’s solely because of the ongoing court cases involving Icesave (more on that later).
Most of the creditors actually sold their stakes to foreign hedge and vulture funds and the like. Again, google translate it if you actually care about the facts.
So, not only did Iceland re-privatise the banking system, we sold it out of the country.
ETA: SOME MORE DETAIL ON THE NATIONALISATION QUESTION
Please see the source for the rest of this very long article...
http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/w...on-in-iceland/
Has anyone asked an Icelander what really happened? Are the people better off? Who is making the claims about what happened?
Who were these bankers that got arrested? Has anyone looked beneath the surface at the details?
How much information was actually given to the people?
Was this a test by the Cabal to determine how gullible people really are?
Was this really the success for the people that it's claimed to be?
Or is it all another propaganda meme?
Was a Goldman Sacs former employee brought in to "fix" things?
http://removingtheshackles.blogspot.ca/2016/01/tn-special-report-iceland-meme-that.html
Is having hope based on lies and half-truths really any kind of hope?
The Economic Truth on Iceland
By Olafur Margeirsson http://icelandicecon.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-economic-truth-on-iceland.html
There are truths and untruths in the media, the blogosphere and in the minds of people when it comes to what really happened in Iceland and its, acclaimed, economic recovery. To some extent, it has gotten the stamp of some sort of an economic “Wunderkind” by defying all probabilities and becoming a poster child about how to respond to major economic crises. But to spill the beans already: the picture is not as rosy as it has been painted.
Let’s start with some of the claims. According to a less than a five minute search on the internet, Iceland:
Rather than post this long article I have included a link above.
"The article concludes: the Second Economic Crash of Iceland is around the corner. For the economic Wunderkind has cancer."
Truth be told, the major lesson Iceland has for other countries is how to keep the electronic payment system alive during a massive financial storm. That lesson has gone completely under the radar and I don’t think a single foreign entity or a central bank has picked it up as of yet!
What Is Actually going On In Iceland? http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/
by Baldur Bjarnason
Because I’m tired of you people spreading untruths
Since people continue to spread the factually dubious statement that Iceland “told creditors & IMF to go jump, nationalised banks, arrested the fraudsters, gave debt relief and is now growing very strongly, thanks” I find I have to write this here thing.
(This specific example comes from twitter but is almost identical, word for word, to the standard ‘Iceland is an economic utopia’ mantra that is being repeated ad nauseam.)
Because, for some reason, people won’t believe Icelanders when they say that the above is not quite the reality as most Icelanders experience it.
1. ICELAND TOLD IMF TO GO JUMP, GO AWAY, LEFT THE IMF PROGRAM ETC.
No it didn’t. Just look at the IMF’s country overview page for Iceland and read the reports.
https://www.imf.org/external/country/ISL/
(Too much to read? Well, boohoo. Don’t claim to know what Iceland’s and IMF’s relationship is until you have.)
Even a cursory look should tell you that Iceland didn’t throw the IMF out of the country and that the IMF’s praise for Iceland and our government is effusive and that Iceland followed the IMF’s advice to a tee. There are other details there, if you read through the archives, that are interesting, such as the fact that in several cases, especially when it came to the banks, Iceland actually went further along the libertarian axis than the IMF recommended.
2. ICELAND TOLD THE CREDITORS TO GO JUMP.
Yes and no. Iceland didn’t bail out the collapsed banks, but that wasn’t for the want of trying. If you read through the Report of the Special Investigation Commission you’d find out that the Icelandic government tried everything it could to save the banks, including asking for insane loans to pay off the banks’ debts.
The report: http://sic.althingi.is/
Most of it, and most of the really juicy stuff IMO, is only available in Icelandic, unfortunately. You can find the Icelandic version here: http://rna.althingi.is/
So the true story is that Iceland tried and tried and tried and tried as hard as we could to save the creditors. The only reason why we didn’t is that the Icelandic government, then and now, is completely incompetent.
Dumb things Icelandic officials did while trying to garner international support (mentioned in the report) :
Spin that a noncommittal but positive reply from the Russians was a loan agreement, ****ing off the Americans and the Russians resulting in no loans from either.
Not answering Alistair Darling’s phone call (he was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer or finance minister at the time). They literally put him on hold, then told him to call later and hung up.
Announcing on live TV that we were not going to help creditors, including those who had deposits, while they were in the middle of negotiations for funding to save said banks. Then having to backtrack to get any sort of help from the EU.
Lying to the governor of the Bank of England and the president of the European Central Bank about the state of the banks.
And plenty more. All in the special report. Read it if you care about what happened in Iceland. The short version is that they tried to save the banks, save the creditors and screwed up completely.
Other tidbits from the report: Icelandic MP’s received a lot of no-strings-attached free money from the banks and the key players in the banking bubble and ensuing collapse are not the same as the people who are being convicted for fraud or insider trading.
Except for two:
A ministry department head (also my namesake) who sold all of his stock soon after he attended a meeting on the state of the banks was convicted for insider trading. Baldur sakfelldur. The only reason why he was convicted is because he was too stupid to even try to cover his tracks.
And Lárus Welding, who some consider a key player and is mentioned several times in the report, was convicted yesterday and will be jailed for six months, plus three months probation. He gets to keep all the money he made and he’s going to appeal. Given the libertarian slant of the high court, his conviction is still not a certainty. The jail time he has just got in the lower courts is much much less than the prosecutor was hoping for, which does not bode well for later cases.
(A newish story on his conviction. It should work fine in google translate and you can nod along to the video, pretending to understand.)
The prime minister was found guilty of negligence in his job but was completely unpunished. No jail time, no fine, no nothing. I’d call him a scapegoat if he hadn’t actually gotten away scot-free.
Guardian: Iceland ex-PM Geir Haarde cleared of bank negligence. The Guardian piece was originally titled ‘Iceland ex-PM Geir Haarde found guilty of banking crash failure’ which is the headline that got distributed on twitter, of course, being the absolute opposite of the truth.
Icenews: Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde found not guilty
Everybody else who has been convicted to date are to the Icelandic banking bubble what Bernie Madoff is to Goldman Sachs: fraudsters who took advantage of the climate but weren’t key players in the bubble or the collapse.
It’s a bit like arresting a Nazi lieutenant when Hitler and Goebbels are still running around. What am I supposed to say to that? Well done? He’s small fry but I guess he’s a start? Pat them on the head and say better luck next time?
Bah, humbug.
(I guess the above also addresses 3. Iceland arrested the fraudsters, showing that it’s patently not true. Iceland arrested some fraudsters: the pawns, small fry, and the lackeys.)
4. ICELAND NATIONALISED THE BANKS.
This much is true. Iceland then privatised them again in record time. Two out of the three collapsed major banks in Iceland are now owned by the creditors. (“But I thought Iceland shafted the creditors?” Hah! Yeah, funny that.) The third bank, Landsbanki, is still nationalised but that’s solely because of the ongoing court cases involving Icesave (more on that later).
Most of the creditors actually sold their stakes to foreign hedge and vulture funds and the like. Again, google translate it if you actually care about the facts.
So, not only did Iceland re-privatise the banking system, we sold it out of the country.
ETA: SOME MORE DETAIL ON THE NATIONALISATION QUESTION
Please see the source for the rest of this very long article...
http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/w...on-in-iceland/