The Ex. Permanent Secretary for The Ministry of Finance gets two years imprisonment and 192 million isk were appropriated for his sale of Landsbanki shares just before the banks collapse.
All eyes will now be on his bridge-pals in the high court, will they come to his rescue??
In the light of the meltdown, it is interesting to see so little in what came out of the “National Assembly” which curtails the monetary and corporate powers directly.
“Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws.” — Mayer Amsched Rothchild,
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Over time, whoever controls the money system controls the nation.” — Stephen Zarlenga
“Under the Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, our government has the sovereign power to issue money and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare, for example, through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure – health and education – rather than misusing the money system for speculation as banking has historically done; periodically causing one crisis after another. Our lawmakers must now reclaim that power!”
The American Monetary Act (proposed)
Socially responsible banking– utopia or reality?
Crowd-sourcing
National Assembly a great success!
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Hurra, wir dürfen zahlen.
Der Selbstbetrug der Mittelschicht
The free and hard-hitting western press, the forth estate and all that B.S., has totally “missed” this: Global Plans to Replace the Dollar.
“The cycle supporting a permanent US war economy appears to be almost over. Once the dollar cannot flood central banks and no one buys US treasury bonds, the American global military empire collapses. The impact on daily living for the US population could be severe.”
“The United States tells debtor economies to sell off their public utilities and natural resources, raise their interest rates and increase taxes while gutting their social safety nets to squeeze out money to pay creditors. ”
“When Mr. Geithner put on his serious face and told an audience at Peking University in early June that he believed in a “strong dollar” and China’s US investments therefore were safe and sound, he was greeted with derisive laughter.”
It may be helpful if “Geithner can show us some arithmetic,” said Yu. “We need to know how the U.S. government can achieve this objective.”
Referring to the Federal Reserve “as the world’s biggest junk investor,” and to Chairman Ben S. Bernanke as “helicopter Ben,” Yu said the Fed has dropped “tons of money from the sky since the subprime crisis.”
If the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO are but drawers in the US Treasury, what does that mean for an Icelandic Finance Minister of the left freaking kind who pusses their neocon economic theories (confirmed by a typewriter) culminating the absurdity by speaking at Goldman Sachs meat. Are we insane or just simple farm-folks.
Chris Hedges, The American Empire Is Bankrupt
Michael Hudson, De-Dollarization: The Yekaterinburg Turning Point
Fred Weir, Iran and Russia Nip at US Global Dominance
Lyubov Pronina, Medvedev Shows Off Sample Coin of New ‘World Currency’ at G-8
Edmund Conway, UN Wants New Global Currency to Replace Dollar
Jose Arturo Cardenas, Latin American Leftists Tackle Dollar with New Currency
” MEMBERS OF THE PARLIAMENT! WE ICELANDERS ASK YOU FOR A
TRANSPARENT, OPEN DISCUSSION AND RECONSIDERATION
CONCERNING THE SELLING OF THE ACCESS TO OUR NATURAL
RESOURCES !
In two weeks Magma Energy Sweden AB could become the biggest shareholder of HS Orka. The company would then have access to some of our most important natural resources for the next 65 years, with an optional extension for another 65 years. 130 years! Is this in accordance with the laws that state only the Icelandic government should have the right to harness and govern the natural resources of Iceland?
Shouldn’t we ask for an investigation of this deal and get a report on the business exchange concerning our resources, as we got a report on the banks?
Shouldn’t the nation be able to decide for itself if it is willing to sell off it’s natural resources, by means of a law change to enable a national referendum?
One of the IMF’s suggestions is that Iceland should open up access to it’s natural resources to foreigners. According to the letter of intent signed by the government last April, it seems that those suggestions will be followed. Are we thus going to use our nature in this way to pay off the Icesave-debts of those few Icelandic venture capitalists?
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Allegedly the Magma deal is about the benefits of foreign investment. How does that compute with the fact that 70% of the purchase price is financed with a local bullet-loan with collateral in the shares?
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Is there anything that guarantees jobs will be created in Iceland through this deal?
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In the future, water will probably be the most valuable resource in the world. Will the deal with Magma Energy possibly set a legal precedent, and be used in the future to enforce the sale of more natural resources?
What will our grandchildren think of the deals we’re making now? “
Open Letter to the Members of Parliament (full text)
Petition to the Government
” I urge the authorities to stop the sale of HS Orka and for Alþingi to hold a national referendum on the ownership and the utilisation of our energy resources. ”
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It’s Oh (Not) So Quiet. More than 16,000 people have already signed.
Mapping this onto the UK and US census, this would mean more than 3.3 and 16 million signatures respectively.
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Denial-of-service attack?
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Public Services International -Privatisation in the energy sector (pdf)
Freedom of establishment for companies and abuse of rights in EU/EEA law – Energy policy
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Oh my God, the holy trinity of “free” market economics: growth, (foreign) investment and job creation (lol) is at risk!
By the way, we are living and paying for a disgraced profession (one of many), bought and payed for by the likes of the current vulture.
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What we are seeing now is an “operation” of suppressing the truth and splitting hairs.
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” Who owns Magma Energy? Have MPs and Ministers seen and studied the list of shareholders? If not – how dare they sell valuable assets and rights of usage of the Nations natural resources to complete strangers, men without any reference at all? ” – Lara Hanna
Democracy hasn’t been doing well lately, or as Arundhati Roy put it “the crisis of modern democracy is a profound one. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder”.
The priesthood for the private banker’s theology is all pervasive, and governments have become little more than “escorts” on their payroll. This is all the more peculiar as it should be the legal prerogative of governments of the people by the people to give money its value.
But today we celebrate victory, the people say NO 93,3% – Yes 1,7% to the bailing out of private banks that have pretended to work on the behalf of the people, and in their infinite arrogance, have claimed to be doing Gods Work.
Congratulations Iceland with the National Referendum the first in the history of the Republic.
The Referendum
Birgitta Jonsdottir On the edge with Max Keiser [1] [2]
January 6, 2010 I wrote: 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.
This is now confirmed in a classified letter from the US Embassy in Reykjavik published on Wikileaks. It is easy to demonize the president and forget about the 56,089 Icelanders (23,3% of Icelandic voters), that petitioned him to refer the law to a national referendum. Will our “principal men” succeed in breaking the Constitution in these remaining days?
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May the hand wither that works against the inherent rights of the people.
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New form WikiLeaks: UK-NL “profiteering” from deal. (pdf)
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REF: REYKJAVIK 9
Classified By: CDA SAM WATSON FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D)
1. (C) Summary. CDA met with Ministry of Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Einar Gunnarsson and Political Advisor Kristjan Guy Burgess January 12 to discuss Icesave. After presenting a gloomy picture of Iceland’s future, the two officials asked for U.S. support. They said that public comments of support from the U.S. or assistance in getting the issue on the IMF agenda would be very much appreciated. They further said that they did not want to see the matter go to a national referendum and that they were exploring other options for resolving the issue. The British Ambassador told CDA separately that he, as well as the Ministry of Finance, were also looking at options that would forestall a referendum. End Summary.
The speculators are still in control. Max Keiser stated that in 2006 Bankers from Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were planning to destroy the Icelandic financial system. He went on to say that the speculators had an agenda to bankrupt all the major economies of the world and to pocket the profits (hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of the euro).
The Keiser, estimated that the value of the ‘real’ world economy was $60 trillion and the value of the ‘derived’ or ‘speculative’ market was grater than $700 trillion, which is roughly the same ratio 1:11 to our own madness.
The successor to Orwell’s Newspeak, the Derivatives Acronyms is the new language of the private banking cartel, sounds something like this. “The FAST FOX SAFEly LEAPS over CHAPS with CHIPS on SWINGS but will DIE and ROT to the ECHO of the buddhist OM.” Understood all that? Or more importantly does your ‘representative’ or your Government?
Conspiracy theory or Bernanke’s contempt for US Congress
Stephen Zarlenga, Director of The American Monetary Institute writes “Over time, whoever controls the money system controls the nation.” – Presenting the American Monetary Act (as of July 18, 2009) (pdf)
” The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent upon its favors that there will be no opposition from that class while, on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending . . . will bear its burdens without complaint.”
” I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few and the Republic is destroyed.”
“…commands are dispatched from a computer terminal, or a cell phone. Relevant data are instantly relayed to major financial markets – often resulting in immediate disruptions in the functioning of national economies. “Financial warfare” also applies complex speculative instruments including the gamut of derivative trade, forward foreign exchange transactions, currency options, hedge funds, index funds, etc. Speculative instruments have been used with the ultimate purpose of capturing financial wealth and acquiring control over productive assets.”
Michel Chossudovsky
” “Sustainability” has to mean “for a long time,” where “long” means compared to a human lifetime. The basic exponential arithmetic shows that growth of numbers of real things can’t continue for long times. This simple observation leads to the First Law of Sustainability. “Growth of populations and / or growth in rates of consumption of resources, cannot be sustained.” It follows that the term “sustainable growth” is an oxymoron. It remains a mystery as to why all the ardent advocates of sustainability talk about everything except the First Law of Sustainability.”
Albert A. Bartlett
“No money changer who may hereafter fail, and none who has recently or in times passed failed, shall again keep a bank or hold any office under the crown. Any such shall be proclaimed bankrupt and disgraced by public crier throughout the city and also in the place he had his office. Until he shall have satisfied all demands, he shall be detained on a diet of bread and water.”
Barcelona banking laws passed in 1300
Keiser Report ?14: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
Derivative (finance)
Janet Tavakoli
Web of Debt – Ellen Brown – 1 of 5
Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free by Ellen Hodgson Brown
Brooksley Born’s Nightmare Comes True
Al Bartlett: In Growth We Trust (the simple math 1 to 8 ) and The Essential Exponential!
Stephen Zarlenga: The Lost Science of Money
Carroll Quigley: Tragedy and Hope .(pdf 5.43MB )
ATTAC: ..Let’s shut down the financial casino (pdf)
Sponsor an Executive 🙂
A Pre-referendum documentary [John Zufelt]
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Michael Payne writes “It’s time for Americans to face this grim reality; that government of the people, by the people, for the people is no more, it has perished.”
For the rest of us the story is much the same. Private banks dump their enormous debts onto the public and the Government-Banking Cartel talks about “honoring obligations”. – Just Not Theirs.
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..
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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
” 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
