Too Small To Save

Argentina received its loan from the IMF because it was considered "too big to fail." It owed a lot of money to a lot of people.  Those creditors pressured their governments and their governments pressured the IMF to give the loans so they could be paid. They never got paid because Argentina knew everyone else knew it was "too big to fail" and could play that angle. 

Icesave is not the real problem here.  Or the refinancing of the banks. Or the cutting of social services. Or any other reason the IMF dreams up to stop the loan payment.  The real honest, disgusting truth is that the IMF, the EU, Iceland's Nordic "friends" and everyone else don't give a shit what happens to Iceland.  There is not enough debt owed to major creditors with political pull or assets to steal to make Iceland worth anything to anyone involved.  There are no foreigners other than a few British and Dutch savers who are going to gain from the bailout . And there are no "hitmen" salivating at the thought of Iceland selling state assets. 

It is either pony up and pay the debt or try to go it alone. No middle road, no compromise.  There is nothing to negotiate with. Iceland is simply to small to be saved.

GTB

Vonast eftir láni í lok ágúst

Three Bad Men and One Good Woman

Today, Obama met with both Henry Gates and James Crowley for a beer because of Gate's arrest last week.  Crowley, a microbrewery snob, went for the Sam Adams while the Pres and Gates went more traditional, Colt 45.  Joe Biden sat in the meeting so it would be more "balanced".  Otherwise Crowley might feel as though the brothas were gangin' up  on him.  

How strange to see these men that are supposed to be so well educated and trained, act, in the words of Colin Powell, like they needed adult supervision.  Gates was wrong for overreacting and not remaining calm in the face of police questioning.  Gates should have Uncle Tom-ed up right away, especially since he is a black man dealing with the police.  Crowley was wrong for acting like, well, a cop.  Imagine someone talking back to a cop.  How outrageous!  Don't people know cops carry guns?  Gates was lucky he wasn't shot 43 times. 

It could have been worse for Gates though.  The officer could have been Justin Barrett who said in an e-mail wrote that Gates behaved "like a banana -eating jungle monkey" and  he "would have sprayed him in the face with OC (pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."  In Barrett's defence, it was not a racist remark because he said jungle monkey and not jungle bunny.  Nothing can help the pepper spary remark unfortunately.  If this man will use a defensive weapon because the person is "belligerent" who knows what he will use his gun for.  Happily though, he no longer has his gun.

As for Obama, he should not involve himself in such petty affairs.  Sure Crowley, along with Gates, acted stupidly.  That is obvious.  Comments from the President about the the arrest was even more stupid. Looks like Biden is starting to rub off on Obama. Not a promising thought.

Finally, there is Lucia Whalen, a person trying to do good because she thought she saw something wrong.  She has been villified in the whole affair as being racist.  She never described the men she saw as black, even though it somehow made it into Crowley's police summary that she did. The 911 tapes confirm this.  When pressed by the 911 operator to describe the men she saw, she said one could have been hispanic. She didn't say one looked like "banana -eating jungle monkey".  And yet she took much abuse in the media as if she did say that.  She was the only one who acted rationally that day. Where was her White House invite? Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy, said the three men — Gates, Crowley and Obama — all overreacted, while Whalen kept her cool."The three highly trained guys who reacted badly are getting together for a beer," Murphy said. "The one person whose actions have been exemplary will be at work tomorrow in Cambridge. I don't know — maybe it's a guy thing. She doesn't like beer anyway." 

And people wonder why the US is so screwed up.

GTB

Sáttabjór með forsetanum

What Were They So Good At?

Remember a time when a person was wealthy, it meant they had lots of money? Because they were good at what they did? And they managed everything well so they stayed wealthy? Now apparently to be wealthy all one needs to do is acquire lots of debt and buy things that maybe they can't really afford. 

Björgólfur Thor and the old man Björgólfur were not good at what they did. They are, in a way, no different from politicians.   Politicians are not particularly gifted in their jobs.  If they were, Iceland and the world wouldn't be is such a mess.  No, politicians are really good at only one thing-getting elected.  And the Björgólfurs are not good at any particular business, but they were just good at one thing-getting loans.  

Remember, one truly doesn't own anything until is is paid for.  And a person isn't wealthy unless he has the money to pay for what he says he owns. What do these two frauds think they own now?

GTB

Skoða lánveitingar Landsbanka

Bonus Pay

I am starting to believe the expense of paying the members of the Althing to attend all these Icesave meetings is going to exceed the cost of the deal itself!

GTB

Fundað um Icesave

Renegotiation

How many more people need to tell the Icelandic government that the current Icesave agreement is a bad one before they will believe it?  Iceland will eventually have to come to some agreement on payment of the insurance to cover the accounts in Britain and Holland, that much is sure.  But the Icesave agreement in its present form is not the best deal Iceland can get.  It is at best a hurried and unfair agreement and at worst, plain extortion.  Voting down the agreement is not saying Iceland will not pay.  It is saying Iceland wants a better, more fair agreement that everyone, most importantly the country that has to pay it, can be satisfied with. This is a simple matter of renegotiation of the debt, not  the renegging of it.

GTB

Er ríkisstjórnin að gera samskonar mistök og útrásarvíkingarnir?

Locks Only Keep Honest People Out

That is what my grandpa used to tell me.  It doesn't make a damn bit of difference if the keys were in car or not.  If someone wants to take something they are going to take it, lock or no lock, key or no key.  The sad part is the insurance company will probably not cover the car because the keys were in it.  As if that gives a person the right to take it.

This whole thing reminds me of a bike I had in San Francisco.  I parked outside a corner deli one morning around 11 o'clock because I needed to purchase some milk.   I didn't lock it because it was only going to take a minute and because I didn't own a lock for it, I never left it outside, unattended. (This was the first time, believe it or not!)  I swear I wasn't in the store for more than 30 seconds when some homeless man tried to take it.  I went outside and asked what the fuck he thought he was doing.  He actually asked me if the bike was mine, to which  I replied  "It certainly isn't yours!" 

You would think the simple fact of ownership would be enough for an insurance company. But they alway try to find a way out of paying even if it requires making you look like the person who did something wrong.

GTB

Fluttur á sjúkrahús

It's Not Even Over and It's Starting Again!

The British government is dropping the ban on 100% mortgages.  Their rationale is that "banning higher-risk mortgages may be counterprouctive". We all remember how good 100% mortgages were for the Americans and the Icelanders.  Good to see the British have learned nothing from the previous economic recession.  And so the ecomonic practice of debt over savings starts again, at least for the British. Who will be next to follow them down the rabbit's hole?

GTB

 

Bjóða aftur 100% húsnæðislán

Mind of Their Own

Even though 60% of the people are against the Icesave agreement, It will probably still be passed by the Althing.  Like most other of the world, this government is just as likely to fail to do the will of the people who elected them.  It has always made me wonder why it is called representative government when they really only represent their own interests. Thomas Jefferson once said "The will of the people... is the only legitimate foundation of any government".  But in Iceland it is constitutionally acceptable, believe it or not, for the members of the Althing to ignore the people who elected them.  Article 48 of the Icelandic Constitution states-Alþingismenn eru eingöngu bundnir við sannfæringu sína og eigi við neinar reglur frá kjósendum sínum. The translation being-Members of Althingi are bound solely by their conviction and not by any instructions from their constituents. Of all the articles of the constitution, the members of the Althing pay this one too much attention.

GTB

Meirihluti mótfallinn Icesave

Clarification

Franek Rosvadovsky spoke today on RÚV in the rather ambiguous terms. I took the time to clarify some of the more vague statements.

 -"The ICESAVE agreement and both the one that has already been signed and the parliament´s passing it, is not a precondition under the review of the program."

CLARIFIED -The Icesave agreement has already been signed. If the parliament doesn't pass it we will use some other excuse to postpone the IMF loan.

_"But as you know, the review does have financial requirements."

CLARIFIED- Do what the British and Dutch tell you or you will not get any money.

_"I don't know whether this deal is the best possible for Iceland.  One can never know something like that for any deal. "

CLARIFIED- The ICESAVE deal is as bad as our IMF deal but hey, we are only holding the gun to your head, it is you that must pull the trigger.

 

GTB

Þjóðarbúið ekki á hliðina vegna Icesave

Nonwhaling Nation?

The New York Times, in its ridiculous editorial, said

The commission’s nonwhaling members, the United States included, should press for a complete ban.

Since when is the United States considered a nonwhaling nation?  The asked for and received permission to allow native peoples to kill whales in Washington and Alaska.  The US Navy probably kills more whales with its sonar than all the whaling nations combined.  And the only really endangered whale, the right whale, is being slaughtered every year by ship strikes in the shipping lanes of the coast of the US.  Where are the calls to ban shipping to save that whale?

 The US takes a ANTI-whaling stance but they are far from a nonwhaling nation.  Nonwhaling would be more like the IWC members Switzerland or Mongolia that don't even have access to an ocean to fish in.  Kind of make one wonder what they are doing in the IWC to begin with. This is akin to Iceland being in a committee to regulate giraffe hunting in Africa.

The Times calls the ban on whaling "not really a ban at all". That is because it is NOT supposed to be a ban but a moratorium.  A moratorium is supposed to be temporary.  But somehow the "non-whaling" members have twisted the original purpose of the IWC from a regulatory body into a conservation body.  This is the real reason the IWC is failing,because it is not doing what it was meant to do, which is regulating whale hunting, instead of banning it.

GTB

Hvetur til algers hvalveiðibanns