Iceland to Bankers, Bureaucrats: Screw You
Tags: Financial Crisis.
With 83,478 votes counted following Saturday’s referendum in Iceland, 78,092 are votes to reject December’s Icesave law and 1,284 (1.5 percent) have voted to keep the law in force. 2,830 empty ballots were cast in protest.
What’s it all about? Here:
Icelanders overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would saddle each citizen with $16,400 of debt in protest at U.K. and Dutch demands that they cover losses triggered by the failure of a private bank, first results show.
Got that? Brit and Dutch investors put money in to the overheated Icelandic banking system a couple years back and lost everything when the inevitable crash occurred. Naturally, the desire of governments – in Iceland, Britain and Holland – was to get the taxpayers to cover the losses suffered by greedy fools.
Nothing doing, says the people of Iceland, and good for them. Mish offers some advice:
Perhaps the best thing to do is default and suffer the consequences. Even if it is not the best thing to do, that is what 93% of Icelandic voters want to do, so that is what Iceland should do.
Fitch downgraded Iceland’s debt to Junk. Moody’s and the S&P threatened to do so. Note how pathetic Moody’s and the S&P are in threatening (not doing), even after the fact. Does anyone give a rat’s (expletive deleted) about that downgrade now?
Iceland does not need help from the IMF when it will saddle every citizen with $16,400 of debt. Fools in the UK and Netherlands rushed in to Icelandic banks and the fools in the UK and Netherlands are the ones who should suffer the consequences.
It was perfectly obvious Iceland was in an unsustainable situation so the prudent thing to do would be to get the (heck) out of the way.
By defaulting on debt, Iceland will send a much needed message “Don’t do stupid things”.
We, the people of the United States, are on the hook for all $12 trillion in federal debt. We let those idiots in DC do this, and now we’re going to have to pay. What is intolerable is to have the people bail out the banks and investors who screwed up. Bankruptcy is not the worst thing which can happen – and it might teach some worthwhile lessons about those who want to make a killing rather than set up long term, prudent investments.
I congratulate the people of Iceland on the clear eyed courage.
Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
6 Responses to “Iceland to Bankers, Bureaucrats: Screw You”
Caucus of Corruption
We let those idiots in DC do this, and now we’re going to have to pay.
Who’s this “we”, kemo sabe?
I can’t fathom any way that a significant portion of our $12.5 trillion (yeah, it’s gone up a half trillion in the last couple months) is ever going to be paid off. It will either be inflated away or repudiated at some point. We’re way past the tipping point of rebuilding the economy to a point where economic growth can sustain the kind of debt we’re creating, even assuming that this current administration desires to actually rebuild our economy — which they obviously don’t.
Spook,
I think we can still manage it – though it might require us advising foreign nations that they’re going to get their money a little later than they expected. But even that might not prove necessary.
With a ten or so trillion dollar economy, we can, just barely, manage this debt IF IF IF we stop piling it on fairly quickly. We’ve got a couple years – four, at the outside, in my view – to balance the budget. And I mean really balanced – where after all revenues come in, we expend less than that (so, no more using SS funds to mask the deficit).
This will take some amazing political courage and a new President, so we won’t be able to do it prior to FY 2013 (which starts, of course, in Oct of 2012 – meaning, furthermore,that whomever takes office in January of 2013 is going to have to take the rather extreme executive action of simply shutting down vast swaths of the non-essential government). But it can be done – and if we balance the budget, really balance it, we’ll be out of debt in 30 years (given that the longest bonds we have outstanding are 30 year notes), but with our debt substantially reduced in five years, and mostly gone in ten.
Or, we’ll keep going on and have to go in to sovereign default.
what historical evidence the gop will balance any budget?
>clinton was the last…
I would love to see the people of the United States do the same about the debt created by the progressives.
I am with Spook. I am not sure I see anyway of paying this debt off, for many generations to come, if ever, especially if this healthcare debacle passes. We already are faced with generational debt because of our entitlements, and the healthcare bill is the largest entitlement program ever proposed. It’s financial insanity.
I’ve got to go with Cluster and Spook on this one.