Tag: Iceland

Closing Thought–21Jul22

I have always admired Iceland for their governmental leadership…..like they jailed the bank execs that helped cause the worldwide economic crash of 2008…..that should have been the policy in this country as well but instead we gave them a free ride to do it again.

Sorry I digress.

Iceland has erected a monument to those that have helped the nation through civil disobedience…..

A huge piece of rock sits in front of the Alþingishús parliament building, barely heeded by tourists, with a black cone of a noticeable size calmly stuck atop it, cracking it in half. It bears a plaque that contains a quote from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, originally drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette during the French Revolution: “When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.”

Created by Spanish artist Santiego Sierra as a monument to civil disobedience, the design of this sculpture was inspired by a medieval tradition during the Inquisition, in which the condemned were forced to wear black cone-shaped hats as a sign of humiliation. Commemorating the so-called Kitchenware Revolution or the Pots and Pans Revolution, the monument caused a bit of controversy among city council members at the time of its installation.

The protests took place between 2009 and 2011 in the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis and the government’s poor handling of the situation, calling for the resignation of the right-wing Independence Party officials and for a new election. Considered the largest-scale protests in Icelandic history at the time, thousands of people gathered before the parliament and demanded changes to the old system.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-black-cone-monument-to-civil-disobedience

This is a great idea for this country…. we have monuments for individuals but there was more to our civil disobedience than one person….we should celebrate the masses that were the protests.

This country was founded by those that participated in the disobedience……and we have a long history of civil protests………

Top 5 Acts of Civil Disobedience in American History

This is a great idea from a great country…..someone needs to think like the Icelandic people.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Use Iceland As An Example

Surely everybody remembers the economic crisis of 2008………can you remember all the debate of whether to let the thieving banks to go bust of not?  There was also a debate on whether the CEOs of said banks should be held responsible…….how about the term “too big too fail”?

I have written about what Iceland decided to do in the past……and today it looks like their plan was far superior to any plan we had here in the states……

Maybe we should take a good long look at what Iceland did…….and learn from their example…..

 

Three charts that show Iceland’s economy recovered after it imprisoned bankers and let banks go bust – instead of bailing them out – Business News – Business – The Independent.

Iceland Shows The World

This would have been the perfect gift for the country to give to its people on the joy of the season……start putting the thieves that work at banks in prison…….wishful thinking I know but at least one country has done the right thing…….(read on)…..

There has been lots of mumbling and grumbling about what the bankers were allowed to get away with when they caused the economic meltdown of 2008……..they have made obscene bonuses and still walk among us even after about 50% of the population lost lots of their coveted nest egg that they were depending on for a comfortable retirement….the American Dream was crapped on by the banks and the thieves they employ……some Americans have called for these crooks to be jailed for they basically robbed the population of their funds….but so far they got bigger bonuses and are not help responsible for their actions…….what to do…..what to do?

The small island country of Iceland has shown the world what should be done to these cons……

(Newser) – Iceland has done something highly unusual with some of the bank chiefs blamed for the country’s 2008 financial collapse: put them on trial and sent them to prison. Four former Kaupthing Bank bosses have been sentenced to between three and five years for market abuses relating to a deal where a Qatari sheikh bought a confidence-boosting stake in the bank with money that had been provided by the bank itself, the BBC reports.

Prosecutors said the loans, made soon before Kaupthing collapsed under massive debts, were made solely to boost the bank’s share price, reports Reuters. The bank’s former chief executive and chairman of the board received prison terms, along with one of its majority owners and the chief of its Luxembourg branch. The sentences are the heaviest Iceland has ever handed down for financial fraud, but prosecutors say a bigger case against Kaupthing is in the works

And that my friends is how you hold con artists responsible for their actions……America should follow suit….but NO…we fine them and let them return to the actions they were doing that caused the economic collapse……where is the logic here?

News You Did Not Hear

There is always news that we do not get to process mentally…..news that does not play into the paradigm that the MSM or the government or the political parties want us to know or be aware of…….

In the past I have had several posts about Iceland and their handling of their version of the economic meltdown…….

Bloomberg reports:

Iceland holds some key lessons for nations trying to survive bailouts after the island’s approach to its rescue led to a “surprisingly” strong recovery, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief to the country said.

Iceland’s commitment to its program, a decision to push losses on to bondholders instead of taxpayers and the safeguarding of a welfare system that shielded the unemployed from penury helped propel the nation from collapse toward recovery, according to the Washington-based fund.

***

Iceland refused to protect creditors in its banks, which failed in 2008 after their debts bloated to 10 times the size of the economy.

Unlike other nations, including the U.S. and Ireland, which injected billions of dollars of capital into their financial institutions to keep them afloat, Iceland placed its biggest lenders in receivership. It chose not to protect creditors of the country’s banks, whose assets had ballooned to $209 billion, 11 times gross domestic product.

***

“Iceland did the right thing … creditors, not the taxpayers, shouldered the losses of banks,” says Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York. “Ireland’s done all the wrong things, on the other hand. That’s probably the worst model.”

Iceland got it right!  The US and EU have made it up to the taxpayer to bail out the criminals that caused this meltdown…….

It is election time so the conservs have been thumping their chests over Iran….but the biggest neo-con like Dan Senor have failed to let the people know another thing….this shoulkd not surprise anyone……but in case you have missed it….we hear constantly just how close Iran is to a nuke but very little about anything else that happens in the country……..

Excerpts of the report, posted this week on several Iranian websites, revealed that the government might not be able to pay the full salaries of its employees in the coming three months, which threatens the eruption of massive popular protests across the country.

Large portions of the population might suffer from starvation, the report said, adding that riots are expected to take place in border cities where living conditions are rapidly deteriorating.

According to the report, Iran’s reserve of foreign currency might run out within the coming six month owing to extreme budget deficiency.

 Other official reports have stated that Iranian factories are working on only half their capacity, and that a large number of them have declared bankruptcy.

Under international sanctions, inflation in the country has reached 33 percent and prices of meat, chicken, and milk saw an unprecedented hike that reached 80 percent last year.

Read More…

There are many news stories that we here in the US do not get with our daily dose of control information……..what are they afraid of….that the American people may not support their lousy plans?

Where Have All he Statesmen Gone?

A good question to ask here in the US.  We NO longer have statesmen we have old farts that want to hang on o their prestige of Congress for as long as possible…..it is NO longer what is right for the country and its people but rather what is right for those paying their political tabs for them.  These bloodsuckers will lie, distort and misinform the voter just to remain in their ivory towers and in doing so have crapped all over the ideal that is America.

But how do we know what a REAL statesman looks like?  Since we have NO one capable of demanding that title ….,what should we look for?

I advice…..look to ICELAND!

Icelandic president, Olafur Grimsson…….

A combative former leader of a now defunct left-wing party, he became a symbol of resistance after the 2008 collapse of Iceland’s banks by taking the unprecedented step of refusing to sign into law government bills on repayment of money lost in the crash to its larger European neighbors.

In doing so, Grimsson, 69, emboldened a presidential office that had up until then played a mainly ceremonial role and put himself at loggerheads with the centre-left government as well as international creditors.

Grimsson, who, unlike the government, opposes joining the European Union, won 52.8 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election to beat his closest rival, television journalist Thora Arnorsdottir, 37, who won 33.2 percent, the final tally showed on Sunday.

When the North Atlantic nation’s top banks collapsed in the space of a week in 2008, the country adopted a strategy to compensate local savers but not overseas ones, the bulk of which were British and Dutch depositors with so called Icesave online accounts.

These countries later demanded repayment of about $5 billion they spent compensating domestic savers, triggering a fierce international row. Twice, deals with the Icelandic government were agreed only for Grimsson to refuse to sign them, sending the unpopular bills to defeat in public referendums.

By effectively vetoing the agreements he broke well over half a century of political tradition and staked out a claim for a much more active and powerful presidential office, a course he has pledged to continue.

Now that is a statesman!  His concern is for the people and the country not what the World Bank wants or the IMF….is it self-serving?  Probably, but the people see a man fighting for them and not the international financial giants that are controlling the rest of the world….

Grimsson makes the politicians in the US look like the pathetic tools that they are…..we can only hope that one day there will be a real statesman that will rise in the US………

From Iceland With Love

I know sounds like a good James Bond movie, but sadly it is not……I have said in the past that I love Iceland they have no problem with gays, they elect competent women in politics, crime is almost non-existent and it is a gorgeous place……..

I am sure if you have half a brain you will know that the EU is in turmoil….Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the EU is struggling to find a way to save the institution without loosing any of the member states…..and that boils down to bailouts…..bailouts to the tune of 100’s of billions of dollars….this is where the post turns to Iceland…….

Iceland is free.  And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.

On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.

At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses.  But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.

In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent.   “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout.

A similar referendum in 2009 on the issue, although with harsher terms, found 93.2 percent of the Icelandic electorate rejecting a proposal to guarantee the deposits of foreign investors who had funds in the Icelandic bank. The referendum was invoked when President Olafur Ragnur Grimmson vetoed legislation the Althingi, Iceland’s parliament, had passed to pay back the British and Dutch.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iceland would have had to pay £2.35 billion to the UK, and €1.32 billion to the Netherlands by 2046 at a 3 percent interest rate.  Its rejection for the second time by Iceland is a testament to its people, who feel they should bear no responsibility for the losses of foreigners endured in the financial crisis.

Read more at NetRightDaily.com…

Now think about that for a moment……(pause here for reflection……)Iceland has told the EU…”Bite Me”!

What a Unique concept!  The people telling politicians what to do….maybe there is a future for that……and we could call it….oh, I don’t know……..maybe something clever like…….DEMOCRACY!

E-Democracy (Redux)

College of Political Knowledge

I recently wrote a piece for Info Ink about E-Democray……a new form of governance that is coming into its own…..if you would like to see what I wrote then click away, my friend…….http://t.co/y2fNA6F

a form of direct democracy that uses information technologies and communication technologies and strategies for political and governance processes. Such processes can be used for governance of local communities, nations and internationally. Democratic actors and sectors in this context include governments, elected officials, the media, political organizations, and citizens/voters.E-democracy aims for broader and more active citizen participation enabled by the Internet, mobile communications, and other technologies in today’s representative democracy, as well as through more participatory or direct forms of citizen involvement in addressing public challenges.

E-Democracy may be getting its first test……In Iceland, the land of the oldest parliament…….

“I believe this is the first time a constitution is being drafted basically on the Internet,” Thorvaldur Gylfason, a member of the constitutional council, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “The public sees the constitution come into being before their eyes.”The council is posting draft clauses on its Web site, and the public comments there or on a Facebook page. The panel’s meetings are open to the public and streamed live online.The constitution provides for separation of powers to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis and changes elections to the Parliament, the Althing, which dates from 930.

Will this prove to be the way of the future?

There Needs To Be More Icelands!

When I was in the military I was fortunate enough to visit Iceland…..never saw so many REAL blondes and redheads in my life…….gorgeous scenery (wink)…..great people and a crime rate so low it would scare most Americans….I liked Iceland…but until recently I never realized how much I liked it…..

FOR THE second time in two years, the people of Iceland have voted in a referendum against the repayment of Icelandic banks’ supposed debt to Britain and the Netherlands.

In an article written by Jason Netek:

In response, the British and Dutch governments are preparing to sue the Republic of Iceland for the sum of 4 billion euros in an effort to win back money lost by their own citizens in failed Icelandic banks during the financial crash of 2008. But having failed in the court of public opinion, Britain and the Netherlands now intend to move into a regular courtroom, where judgments and the will of the people share a less cozy relationship.

It makes perfect sense that a population which overthrew a government for its relationship with the banksters would continually reject any plan to force them to assume the role of a mass insurance agency for private banks. Such important matters as global finance are never intentionally left to the democratic process for the same reason a burglar does not first seek the consent of a homeowner before breaking a window and making off with the silver. And the legal action against Iceland by Britain and the Netherlands is like lawsuit filed by a burglar who cut himself on the glass during a break-in.So after standing up to their own domestic ruling class hell bent on living large at their expense, the majority of Icelanders may soon find themselves in an even more complex struggle, squaring off against two foreign governments struggling to force their own populations to pay for their own bankers’ misdeeds.

The American people need to take a page from the Icelandic playbook…..we need to tell the banksters that we are sick of paying their dues and they buying our government……maybe my friend and reader in the UK, Quin of Quintessential Havoc (my blogroll will get you to his interesting site…visit often….) can give me some insight on the UK’s point of view on this situation…..there may be more to this story than I have seen….

Iceland Installs First Gay PM

Johanna Sigurdardottir, named as Iceland’s prime minister on Sunday, is the first openly lesbian head of government in Europe, if not the world – at least in modern times.

The 66-year-old’s appointment as an interim leader, until elections in May, is seen by many as a milestone for the gay and lesbian movement.

Up until now, if a gay man or woman has been prime minister, they have done their best to conceal the fact.

In Iceland itself, however, the new prime minister’s sexual orientation appears to be causing less excitement than it is abroad.

What is really historic about this new cabinet, says Skuli Helgeson, the general secretary of Ms Sigurardottir’s Social Democratic Alliance, is not the fact that its leader is a lesbian, but that for the first time in Icelandic history it boasts an equal number of men and women.

“I don’t think her sexual orientation matters. Our voters are pretty liberal, they don’t care about any of that,” he told BBC News.