Claire Bernish
October 22, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) Iceland — You could ice skate in Hell sooner than see the United States follow in Iceland’s footsteps with this move: the 26th banker was just sentenced to prison for a combined 74 years between them — each of them jailed for their roles in the 2008 economic collapse.
Five top bankers from Iceland’s two largest banks — Landsbankinn and Kaupþing — were found guilty of embezzlement, market manipulation, and breach of fiduciary duties. Though the country’s maximum penalty for financial crimes currently stands at six years, the Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments to extend the limit. Most of those convicted have so far been sentenced to between two and five years.
Do those sentences sound light to you? Perhaps. Until you consider the curious method of punishment the U.S. employed for its thieving bankers.
While Iceland allowed its government to take total financial control when the 2008 crisis took hold, American bankers — in likely the only bail handout given to criminals of mass destruction — received $700 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.
Thank you, Congress American taxpayer.
Iceland certainly didn’t make it through the crisis unscathed. It repaid the IMF (the final $332 million owed was paid in full, ahead of schedule, earlier this month) and other lenders for funds needed to prevent a complete financial meltdown nearly eight years ago. Icelandic bankers are still being held to task for their illegal market legerdemain that nearly brought down the financial planet.
In contrast, not one banker in America has ever (nor will ever?) be held responsible for their criminal acts. Instead, essentially in addition to the $700 billion windfall — Big Banks are now raking in over $160 billion in profit every year.
Iceland’s president, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson, described how his country not only weathered the storm, but has been labeled the first European country to fully recover from the crisis:
“We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing in Europe.”
If only the U.S. government were capable of employing logic.
This article (Iceland’s Bankers Face 74 Years in Prison While US Banks Profit After Your Bailout) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.
it will collapse matter of time…
Moral of the story- only small countries can be true democracies, the larger the population the more complex the structure hence easier to confuse the people
According to Central Bank Governor Már Guðmundsson, the early retirement of the IMF loan is a sign of the success of the programme and Iceland’s effective collaboration with IMF staff.
Claire, what is your source on this?
Robert Taylor make adjustments.. i.e. go back to using salt as a currency. this isn't to speak out in favour of the greedy behaviour by banks and bankers, the shady remuneration committees and back slapping etc. but just to recognise the difference between the insulated decisions of a small, homogenous country of 3m such as Iceland and the shock waves that had to be dealt with by the banking regulators and central banks of the 800m EU & US.
Then, they should have been allowed to fail and let the world economy make adjustments like withdrawing from the petro-dollar and eliminating the Fed and moving to sound currencies across the globe.
Good for them.
Lazy and simplistic thinking above. Iceland could afford to let the Icelandic banks fail and restructure with IMF help because it is a tiny and somewhat insulated economy.
The loss of the Icelandic banks did not affect the rest of the EU to any great degree, given the size of the banks and Iceland's economy. Whereas, if the US banks had been allowed to fail, the entire World financial system would have crashed.
Thank you. Correction has been made.