Iceland Hits The Bankers With A Clue By Four

Denninger:

Iceland's voters took the first step toward the right thing:

Ninety-three percent voted against the so-called Icesave bill, according to preliminary results on national broadcaster RUV. Final results will be published today.

The next step would be to quash any talk of a "new accord."

There is exactly one accord to take: Tell the Netherlands and British to stick it.

They decided to step in on their own without the consent of the Iceland population when Iceland's version of the FDIC ran out of money. It was their decision, not the Icelandic people's to do so.

Voters rejected the bill because “ordinary people, farmers and fishermen, taxpayers, doctors, nurses, teachers, are being asked to shoulder through their taxes a burden that was created by irresponsible greedy bankers,” said President Olafur R. Grimsson, whose rejection of the bill resulted in the plebiscite, in a Bloomberg Television interview on March 5.

That's correct.

The people didn't cause the bankers to do the irresponsible things that led to this, just as the people in the US didn't cause our bankers to do so.

The bankers, with superior knowledge and all their grand mathematical models, took a bet.

The bet was that they could intentionally make bad loans and intentionally fail to disclose risks, and if the bet turned out poorly the people, who did not consent to be stooges, would bail them out.

Iceland's people have said no.

That should be the end of the discussion. The Netherlands and British should bear the costs - all of them - of their own decision to bail out their citizens. That decision was uniquely theirs and did not come with the consent of the Icelandic population - a consent that was belatedly sought and now has been overwhelmingly rejected.

That is the beginning and end of the discussion.

...

To the people of Iceland:

You have my full and unwavering support. Do not knuckle under. These banksters - these criminals - attempted to steal your economic futures, dreams and hopes.

They intentionally and with malice aforethought put together financial programs they knew could not succeed in the long term, believing they could saddle you with the costs while keeping the benefits to themselves.

You have repudiated that belief.

You are a beacon of light in a world of darkness.