Politics & Laws

Coup d’etat

Our massively unpopular president (whose ill fated support of bankers and business people in the lead-up to the crash was more than embarrassing), has decided singlehandedly to change his office to resemble more the American or French presidencies, thus giving him an active political role. – Is he a villain or a hero?

He does this of-course in the name of democracy, by putting to a referendum, this simple question. Would you rather pay for the crimes of my former banker friends or be ostracized from the international community?

By the way, glittering generalities such as: “the international community”, “will honor obligations” sound sincere but they really mean nothing, which is the first rule of propaganda.

Due to the nature of the paraphrased question, I oscillate between the impossible options. Somehow, this referendum reminds me of children playing “Would you rather”.

However, the collaborated crimes of bank$ters and governments in the respective countries, allowing banks to operate without proper supervision, and agreeing only on cloaking their actions behind bank secrecy and then insisting, under threats and duress (Shock Doctrine), that the public committed the crime and should pay for it. This form of government by far surpasses Orwellian Nightmares.

Sheldon Filger, is less torn than I when he writes:

” What is now occurring in Iceland is a foretaste of what may become more common throughout the developed world. Taxpayers have been told by policymakers that they must bear the financial costs of failed decisions made by private business, no matter how steep the price, or accept even more horrendous economic consequences. For the first time, an aroused public in at least one country has rejected the dictates being imposed by the political establishment. No wonder that the Dutch and British governments reacted so swiftly with a condemnation of Iceland’s citizens for having the audacity to think they have the right to exercise their democratic rights in deciding for themselves what is in the best economic interests of their nation. ”

And Martin Wolf the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times writes.

“This is not about cutting a running deficit, which is, indeed, unavoidable. It is about forcing innocent people to assume gigantic liabilities for which they have no legal or moral responsibility. How would UK citizens feel if they were forced to assume a debt of £400bn because of HSBC’s failure to meet deposit insurance liabilities in Asia? Let the UK take the bank’s assets and leave it at that.”

“If the assets of the bank are that valuable, why not write off the debt, in return for the claims on these assets? That would be a generous gesture. It is, more importantly, one that would do much to improve the morale of a battered and vulnerable little country. Threatening such a country with destruction, as Lord Myners has done, is simply shameful. The UK and the Netherlands should stop this self-righteous bullying at once.”

“Yet they – and everybody else – must learn the really big lesson here. The combination of cross-border banking with generous guarantees to creditors is unsustainable. Taxpayers cannot be expected to write open-ended insurance on the foreign activities of their banks. It is bad enough to have to do so at home.“

Ann Pettifor and Jeremy Smith, estimate this figure to be €12,000 in damages per capita. Michael Hudson’s estimate is $20,000 for each Icelandic citizen. Multiply this figure with your own census and make up your own mind about how you would vote, – if you where even asked.

The president puts this figure in context: “May I remind that if you take the sum that the Icelandic taxpayers are asked to shoulder and you transform it in to the British economic system to get the relative size, this is equal to the British taxpayers being asked to pay £700 billion ($1.1 trillion) for the years and decades to come.”

In a TV interview Alain Lipietz one of the authors of EU’s Directive on Financial Services Supervision, states categorically, that the responsibility for supervising banks from outside the EU is with the host country. And that since 1789 governments can’t confiscate money from their citizens to pay to someone else (Money-archy vs. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la mort).

To get reelected, J. M. Barroso promised 500 million Europeans a new “social Europe”. He is now closely watched by member- and aspiring member states suffering from predatory creditors. Will he live up to his promise?

The story from:

Greece
Hungary
Ireland, – “bankers exposed”
Latvia, – “Swedish banks”
etc.

.

.

The “political class” is franticly trying to abort the referendum in Iceland because of the dangerous precedence it would set for other plebeians, and God save our “principal men” from Democracy.

And finally:
Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe by Peter Stufford tells the story of Francesch Castello a failed banker who was beheaded in front of his bank in 1360. (y) Obviously this was before the “Money Masters” bought (into) the Democratic process. (n)

Without social justice there is no future for Europe: by Dr. M. Elvira Méndez-Pinedo.
White-collar crime fighter Eva Joly takes on IceSave
We’re all Icelanders now By Robert Peston
Why do we trust the financial priests? By Robert Peston
Media literacy. why is Peston excemt? BBC rebukes Sally Magnusson
Iceland sees the first anti-bailout revolt by Allister Heath
Iceland has no clear legal obligation to pay up By Dr Michael Waibel
Unjust for Iceland to take sole responsibility By Ms Ann Pettifor and Mr Jeremy Smith
Leading article: Iceland should not be bullied
Iceland can refuse debt servitude By Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs’ Escape Plan By Michael Hudson

Left, Right or Wrong

Which is the worse criminal, the “Right” which implicated us in a monstrous crime, or the “Left” which is making us pay for it?

In similar circumstances, Ferdinand Pecora called it “a shocking disclosure of low standards in high places.”

Vaguely Familiar (?)

” Our world seems to have been invaded by individuals whose approach to life and love is so drastically different from what has been the established norm for a very long time that we are ill- prepared to deal with their tactics of what Robert Canup calls “plausible lie.” As he demonstrates, this philosophy of the “plausible lie” has overtaken the legal and administrative domains of our world, turning them into machines in which human beings with real emotions are destroyed. ”

” “Likeable,” “Charming,” “Intelligent,” “Alert,” “Impressive,” “Confidence-inspiring,” and “A great success with the ladies”: These are the sorts of descriptions repeatedly used by Cleckley in his famous case-studies of psychopaths. They are also, of course, “irresponsible,” “self-destructive,” and the like. These descriptions highlight the great frustrations and puzzles that surround the study of psychopathy. ”

” Narcissists are possessed of inordinate abilities to charm, to convince, to seduce, and to persuade. Many of them are gifted orators and intellectually endowed. Many of them work in politics, the media, fashion, show business, the arts, medicine, or business, and serve as religious leaders. ”

” By virtue of their standing in the community, their charisma, or their ability to find the willing scapegoats, they do get exempted many times. Having recurrently “got away with it” – they develop a theory of personal immunity, founded upon some kind of societal and even cosmic “order” in which certain people are above punishment. ”

The Mask of Sanity
Bankers and Stockbrokers as Malignant and Psychopathic Narcissists
“Without Conscience” Robert Hare’s Web Site
Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work

Investigating Iceland’s financiers

Joly delivers her verdict on everything from financial sector bonuses (immoral) to climate change (a grave danger) and the situation in Gaza (tragic).
. . .
“This is what you see all over the world,” she says, egged on by the documentary makers’ account of how ordinary Icelanders are paying for the crimes of the plutocracy. “The rules are not for the elite. The elite are always living above the law.”
. . .
Perhaps her most valuable contribution is the leverage she has over the investigation’s political masters. Her presence reduces the risk of the probe being suppressed
. . .
“We must be very vigilant. Many people in the market have one idea: to get back to business as usual. We must not forget that this system is very ill.”
. . .
“I am here to help. The ­people of ­Iceland have invested me with a great hope, great expectations,” she says. “But it is their country. Only Icelanders can lead this inquiry.”

FT – Stanley Pignal and Andrew Ward

Hells Angels

We are mightily blessed. – Hells Angels are in town taking over the last remnants of this godforsaken country that wasn’t already in the hands of angels.
However, while the authorities have no difficulty in identifying the former, a leather vest and a Harley, they seem somewhat disabled in recognizing the latter, a suit (white shirt and a tie) and a luxury SUVs.?

Bold Riders or corporate swindlers, their bankers and politicians.

We have been living a nightmare, almost every day after the rapture, new information of fraud and financial misconduct has surfaced that is just unbelievable. After months of horrors, people are blocking their senses just to survive. From all of this the question arises, – is bankrupting a nation a crime or just a minor mishap?

The old formula of privatizing profits and nationalizing costs and losses is right at work. So ingrained is this ‘tradition’ that the nation is going to pay for bankers that went plundering around the world, committing criminal acts the people knew nothing about and were never consulted for, – not to speak of gains and profits (just the usual contempt). And how are we going to pay? – Out of lost moms and papas businesses, out of lost savings and pensions, lost homes, lowered salaries, increased prices and taxes and with our unemployment benefits? – You won’t get any prices for spotting the obvious alternative.

The untouchables strut around the world continuing their luxurious life stiles, taking up residencies in tax havens, where their kind is welcomed, out of reach of justice, – which in it self has lost all meaning.

What have the juristic and police authorities been doing about the scam and sleaze at the top? Investigating? Star advocates are seeing opportunities ahead defending the business bosses, advertising their services by vilifying their potential counterparts and I suppose judges are preparing the usual no verdict to their own upper echelons, nothing else is to be expected, after all the bosses have been writing their own laws for decades. Yes fighting the good fight against lower class crime continues unabated, police tirelessly go around greenhouses cutting ‘grass’, chasing children out of derelict houses they try to occupy, arresting drunks for peeing in the sea, etc. – What glory.

So is nothing of this current crisis our own fault? Yes of course, we bought into massive propaganda and public manipulation, into “sound” economic doctrines (junk science) taught in schools and academia, or in short a cult asserting that we were living in ideal conditions, actually the best of all worlds. Now that our social contract has been broken it will take much to convince us that things will ever be even tolerable.

New Government, new Governors in the Central Bank, new Governor at the Financial Supervisory Authority (already in place), even a new Constitutional Assembly (promised by some) will not do it. Swift Justice over the architects of this system, over the financiers the thirty men and three woman who are said to be responsible for the collapse of the country and their political cronies – just might.

However, swift is already very, very late, the shredders have long since gone quiet, – the Nazgûls of our world are recuperating.

Thankfully we are not alone, many countries if not all, have lived or are living under the same conditions. The Swindler’s List is endless, but the colossal propaganda on the behalf of the “Dark” (sorry) “Bold Riders” only doing much needed and proper business is faulting. Many people have thought long and hard about why we are here in the middle of an utterly unnecessary crisis, they have come here, shared their experience, their knowledge, and much valued expertise.

– Thanks to you all.

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