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E-PrinceLast year I made huge waves in Iceland by suggesting in a column for the Daily Princetonian, purely in jest, that the United States bomb Iceland instead of Iran because it would be so much more convenient. I wrote the ...(back to the article)
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The responsibility of the Icelandic bankers is enormous in this case, but that of the US financial system is greater. What has actually happened, and I hope you Americans wake up to you responsibility soon, is that stupid, greedy American bankers have turned the world upside down. Not only for us in Iceland, that are not only victims of the stupid, greedy American bankers, but also that of even more stupid UK politicians that decided to use anti-terrorist law against their friendly neighbors and place an Icelandic bank on a list with terrorist groups.
You are recommending that students in economy should study the Iceland case. How about learning from the US screw up? Iceland was caught up in a storm originated in US. If the Icelandic banks had kept the credit lines they had before legal but immoral betting started against them. We would be OK. And who are you standing by and pointing at Iceland, saying it was our fault when the blame is yours, i.e. Americans. You are just so blind that you don't see that your house is burning. Iceland is just a casualty of a financial war fought by stupid, greedy American bankers that just think about earning the next penny.
How about facing up to your responsibility as an American citizen and demand that America compensates for the damage it has done to the rest of the world? Why don't you teach your students about how the stupidity and greed of American bankers have caused the near bankruptcy of a small nation that was caught up in the storm the stupid, greedy American bankers started?
OMG!!
A man with your education speaking this nonsense ... No wonder your bankers are messing up the finance in the world if this is the skill of the American education.
Now what? Where is USA going to get their thousand billion dollars to pay for their rescue? China maybe and will Taiwan on a silverplate be the first payment?
Yes, whine, whine....it is all your fault America. Whine, whine.
All we, the poor little Icelanders, wanted was to go on living beyond our means...access to more loans and not think about tomorrow. Whine, whine. It is all your fault, big naughty America.
Our bankers, financial authorities and politicians are angels. They did everything just right. Then came big, bad America and ruined everything.
Whine, whine.
Whine: No it was the other way around. It all started when your politicians decided to legalize financial gambling back in 2000. They decided to trust Wall Street to be self regulated and decided that a significant part of the financial sector would be out side the regulated environment. In US it is illegal to gamble in most states but it is OK gamble with CDO's and CDS's worth $516 trillion and $56 trillion just because it is Wall Street. I hope that the US economy will survive the hurricane that is heading your direction. The thing is I am not sure if US will survive.
Yes, Iceland is a collateral damage in this fight for the next penny. I hope that Mr. Reinhardt will see that in the future. Yes, it is true that we have fallen hard on our face and it is our fault how hard we have fallen, but it were stupid, greedy American bankers that tripped us and how much you deny it, your denial will not change that fact. If it had not been for the fall of Lehman Brothers we would not be in this situation. Proof me wrong if you can. Sure what happened after the first bank fell and the tragic episode that we have since gone through is down to the incompetence of Icelandic politicians and the Icelandic Central Bank. But do not confuse their incompetence with the fact that you started the fire.
I am Icelandic and I think it was indeed the Icelandic private bank community that changed this Island into a hedgefund. The Icelandic politicians supported this economic wonder, the tiger of the north they called it, praising capitalism and paying economist and professors to write quarterly how stable our economy was. Many people belived in non existing over valued sums of money in markets. Many people also belived the more money they would would owe the richer they would become..the sky is the limit! Our only real problem today is our current government who's ideologie seems stuck between Reagan and Thatcher and knows only regulations and isolation to protect their positions and thirst for control.
It is sad to see this bickering between people of two nations. Salvation comes from concentrating where we ourselves went wrong, and accepting responsibility for that. I'm English: the fact is that we are all to blame! The politicians of all our Western countries all failed disgracefully to put a proper financial regulatory framework in place, and we all allowed this credit bubble to happen inspite of warnings. Many of we ordinary citizens are also guilty of intellectal laziness; we allow ourselves to be governed by amateurs. I have lived and worked in Iceland, a heartbreakingly beautiful country, with its clean air and pure colours. The Icelanders have a low population base, which they should guard as their most priceless possession, it enables them to have a moderate western lifestyle but keep close to nature, unlike us in the dirty, crowded UK, filled with insoluble social problems. Is it any wonder that the Icelanders, after centuries of proud struggle and hardship, hankered for the fleshpots? They know what the real things are which they have to treasure and be proud of: perhaps now is a time reassess their values and go back to those things.
Hear hear, Professor Reinhardt. Krugman, Stiglitz and Dani Rodrik - some of the best economists around - would say the same thing.
Comming also for Iceland. I think we can thank the greedy American bankers! If it wasn't for them we would have had even more rope to hang us with.
Our banks were financing acquisitions shopps in Denmark and UK, yes suddenly the fishing Icelanders were going to teach Denmark how to run shopps and newspapers. This was only going to end in disaster.
The Icesave accounts would have been bigger etc.
The only think America is guilty of is education... at the forefront of all this Icelandic nonsense was a MIT grad and a worker at "McKinsey & Co. in Boston". He started the acquisition of risky assets with debt and paying greedy Icelandic bankers bonuses for playing along.
This is a good story for every student textbook,,, This must not happen again,, and must be reminded in the future. Thank you,,
Why oh why must you again raise the ire of the thin-skinned Icelandic teenager horde?