11.15.2008

Iceland: "Voices of caution ... were drowned out"

Iceland: What It's Like to Live in a World Without Money

Excerpts:

There is no daytime TV in Iceland. Parents are at work and children at school, so the test card, that feature of a bygone age, is the only thing aired. For the transmitters to be switched on in mid-afternoon and a sombre-looking Geir Haarde, the prime minister, to appear behind a desk, a national flag at his side, it had to be serious – and it was. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy; the government was taking control of the banks and was going to assume far-reaching powers to secure the safety of the nation and its savers.

As I watched, I felt a detached sympathy for those poor people living on a blighted island – until it dawned on me that I was one of them. Recent events had savaged my net worth by 60 per cent and pushed up my cost of living by more than 20 per cent. Iceland’s plight was mine, too. What I failed to appreciate at the time was the emotion of this unprecedented television address, particularly in the way it finished:

“Fellow countrymen ... If there was ever a time when the Icelandic nation needed to stand together and show fortitude in the face of adversity, then this is the moment. I urge you all to guard that which is most important in the life of every one of us, to protect those values which will survive the storm now beginning. I urge families to talk together and not to allow anxiety to get the upper hand, even though the outlook is grim for many. We need to explain to our children that the world is not on the edge of a precipice, and we all need to find an inner courage to look to the future ... Thus with Icelandic optimism, fortitude and solidarity as weapons, we will ride out the storm.

...

Picture a pig trying to balance on a mouse’s back and you’ll get some idea of the scale of the problem. In a mere seven years since bank deregulation and privatisation, Iceland’s financial institutions had managed to rack up $75bn of foreign debt. In his address to the nation, Haarde put the problem in perspective by referring to the $700bn financial rescue package in America: “The huge measures introduced by the US authorities to rescue their banking system represent just under 5 per cent of the US GDP. The total economic debt of the Icelandic banks, however, is many times the GDP of Iceland.”

And here is the nub. Iceland’s banks borrowed more than $250,000 for every man, woman and child in Iceland, and placed an impossible burden on the modest reserves of the central bank in the event of default. And default they have.

Voices of caution – there were many in Iceland – were drowned out by a media that became fixated on the nation’s emergence from drab pupa to gaudy butterfly


Comment: Iceland today could be the US in a decade!

2 comments:

  1. Dear Jim..this is the "reason" behind the entire worlds problems with debt. We have been "taken" for a ride and hardly anyone realizes the answer is right in their faces.

    Consider who controls Americas largest banks.. who has THE most money on the planet ( which group of "non" violent religionists ? ) , who contributed the largest amount of money to Barack Obama in amounts under $200 dollars through the internet, thus untraceable, who just built http://www.shapedword.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/the_world_dubai.jpg ...this http://www.architecturelist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/07-dubai-palm-island.jpg ... this http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.abdb.com/wp-content/gallery/burj-dubai/burj-dubai-at-141-storeys-the-tallest-building-in-the-world1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.abdb.com/2008/08/15/burj-dubai-tallest-building-in-the-world/&usg=__iz2cvhhry5qk8Cl1OFZn3ZZd9UU=&h=1481&w=1214&sz=341&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=qmhZpA8-7JkRaM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtallest%2Bbuilding%2BDubai%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den after predicting they would well before 9/11 ...this http://harinair.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/cranes-over-hotel-atlantis-jumeirah-resize.jpg .. Look up financial ties between Ron Burkle and Dubai and Clinton. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://suprmchaos.com/bill-uae.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590850/posts&usg=__bBqRUvHIdMVJyK_iwdWxMQaPbhI=&h=277&w=450&sz=18&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=ZAP_8YN1RgxfiM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3DClinton%2Bin%2BDubai%2B2008%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den ...lots of other interesting information out there.

    Consider that islam, the religion of Peace ( ack ) has a great deal of undue influence financially over America especially politically and financially ...and think about which of our banks control our Federal Reserve..which controls the amount of money our government USA prints and lets out and interest rates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course... all of my earlier comment is just my opinion ...based on all the connections easily seen between islamists worldwide and some of our "leading" Americans.

    ReplyDelete

Any anonymous comments with links will be rejected. Please do not comment off-topic