Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story. Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association. “You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis.
Any economist would agree with that.” The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Crisis Lessons People Vs Markets Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Fresh Demands Legal Aftermath. Positive Money » Icelandic Parliament investigating Full Reserve Banking. Written by Positive Money on . Is Iceland – the wonderful island with just 300 thousand citizens – going to be the first country seriously questioning the privatized money creation and considering Full Reserve Banking proposals?
It seems that it might well be the case… A motion has recently been put forward in the Althing – the Icelandic Parliament – calling for the forming of a committee to report on the benefits/costs of full reserves banking. The motion reads: “Althing concludes that the minister of finance will form a committee of specialists to research how the separation of money creation and loan function of the banking system can be achieved by limiting banks’ ability to create new deposits through lending.” Deadlines for submission was December 4th. Ben Dyson made a submission on behalf of Positive Money to the Icelandic parliament in favour of the establishment of a committee to assess the need for reform.
You can read the whole submission here. Report. Iceland Continues Economic Rejuvenation by Purging Financial Parasites. By Pete Papaherakles Iceland is showing the world what real independence from the bankers means. The Nordic island has become the first country to criminally charge a world leader as a result of the 2008 economic crisis. Former Prime Minister Geir Haarde, 73, was found guilty of “failing to adequately inform other Icelandic officials of events that led up to the 2008 financial crisis” according to an April 23 New York Times article. As part of Haarde’s final verdict, two of the original six charges were dropped and the other three were cleared.
These included “gross neglect of duty” and “ failure to reduce the size of the banking system,” charges that were more serious and could have put him behind bars for years. Haarde, who served as Iceland’s prime minister from June 2006 to February 2009, will not actually have to serve any jail time but the trial was indicative of Iceland’s re-establishment of its sovereignty after defaulting on the bankers. IMF Says Bailouts Iceland-Style Hold Lessons in Crisis Times. 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 has made significant achievements since the crisis,” Daria V. Zakharova, IMF mission chief to the island, said in an interview. “We have a very positive outlook on growth, especially for this year and next year because it appears to us that the growth is broad based.”
Iceland refused to protect creditors in its banks, which failed in 2008 after their debts bloated to 10 times the size of the economy. Euro Aid Impressive ‘Key Challenge’ Krona Gains. Iceland, a country that wants to punish the bankers responsible for the crisis. Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction. It has been a revolution without weapons in Iceland, the country that hosts the world’s oldest democracy (since 930), and whose citizens have managed to effect change by going on demonstrations and banging pots and pans. Why have the rest of the Western countries not even heard about it? Pressure from Icelandic citizens’ has managed not only to bring down a government, but also begin the drafting of a new constitution (in process) and is seeking to put in jail those bankers responsible for the financial crisis in the country.
As the saying goes, if you ask for things politely it is much easier to get them. After the State took over, the official currency (krona) plummeted and the stock market suspended its activity after a 76% collapse. Iceland Has Hired An Ex-Cop Bounty Hunter To Go After The Bankers That Wrecked Its Economy. The Worst Bank in the World? HBOS’s Calamitous Seven Year Life. February 27th, 2010 (updated June 22nd, 2012) HBOS’s entrance on The Mound; Image: The We Lessons must be learnt from the short and calamitous history of HBOS, the bank which effectively went bust in September 2008, writes Ian Fraser (Note: This article was first posted under the headline “HBOS: When did the rot set in?
And were shareholders asleep at the wheel?” On October 2nd, 2008 but has since been extensively updated). At best, there were some appalling corporate governance failures at the failed British bank HBOS, with an obsession with growth taking precedence over risk management and prudent banking practice soon after Sir James Crosby became chief executive and Lord Stevenson of Coddenham chairman of the merged HBOS group in September 2001. Throughout the bank’s calamitous seven-year life, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and other authorities for the most part turned a blind eye to the bank’s blatant wrongdoing and recklessness.
Their merger. Bail Out The Bankers? Iceland ARRESTED Them, And Look What Happened. Iceland's On-going Revolution. An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion. As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here's why: Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return.
What happened next was extraordinary. ICELAND. No news from Iceland?… why? How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland: … In Iceland, the people has made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public assembly has been created to rewrite the constitution. And all of this in a peaceful way. A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years: What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example.
This is a summary of the facts: 2008. The main bank of the country is nationalized. 2008. 2010. So in summary of the Icelandic revolution: -resignation of the whole government -nationalization of the bank. Have we been informed of this through the media? The Mouse That Roared - Trailer. How to start a revolution: Learn from Iceland! Q&A: Birgitta Jónsdóttir. Following Iceland's 2008 financial collapse and the government's subsequent resignation, poet and activist Birgitta Jónsdóttir was elected to that country's Parliament, where she has consistently fought for greater transparency and journalistic freedom. (She joined the newly formed Pirate Party last year.)
In 2009, WikiLeaks published the sketchy loan book of a failed Icelandic bank, Kaupthing, but an injunction from a judge prevented the national newscaster, RUV, from reporting it. Viewers were referred to Wikileaks for the information instead, and the secure, anonymous dropbox for whistleblowers became an overnight sensation. Wikileaks' Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg were invited to Iceland; and Jónsdóttir volunteered for the organization, eventually becoming the producer of Collateral Murder, the gunsight-view video of the killing of civilians by U.S. troops in Iraq that catapulted the organization into American consciousness in 2010. We also have a very weak media.
Yeah. Pots, Pans and Other Solutions. Democracy 2.0: Iceland crowdsources new constitution | Reflections on a Revolution ROAR. 25 Ordinary Citizens Write Iceland’s New Constitution With Help From Social Media. The newest government in the world was designed with help from comments on the internet. God help us all. After Iceland’s economic collapse in 2008, the island nation decided it was time to write a new constitution, this one not based on its parent country of Denmark but rather made from the original ideas of its citizens. Iceland’s small population of 320,000 elected 25 assembly members from 522 ordinary candidates (including lawyers, political science professors, journalists, and many other professions), who in turn opened their process up to the public in an unprecedented fashion.
The Constitutional Council was highly active on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr, where they solicited comments and suggestions for the new government. On Friday July 29th, 2011, the Iceland parliament officially received the new constitution, comprised of 114 articles divided into 9 chapters. In many ways then, the new Iceland constitution was the first to ever be born completely in the public eye.