Iceland vs Gordon Brown

Iceland vs Gordon Brown

By Dark Politricks

If you follow me on twitter at @darkpolitricks you will know I have just had a few days in Iceland. It was on my bucket list of things to do before I die and I had some cash so why not. I just wish I brought a video camera or better camera as the amount of rants I heard from taxi drivers about Gordon Browns actions during the Icelandic banking collapse could have filled 60+ minutes.

I had to get taxis as standing around in minus 10C waiting for a bus that will most likely drive past you isn't much fun. However I am glad I did. Not only was every single taxi driver able to speak perfect English but they are on the ball when it comes to politics, international relations and how the world really works.

Every single person I talked to was sick to the teeth of Gordon Browns action to use anti-terrorism laws to freeze Icelandic money in British banks. Not only did this help worsen the economic crisis in Iceland but it made the Icelandic people think they had been betrayed by a friend and ally.

If you don't know, Iceland kept the Brits alive during World War II by sending over fish for us to eat whilst all our trans Atlantic ships were being destroyed by German U-Boats. A little known fact is that per capita, Iceland lost the most people in the war, more than Russia, more than the Jews and more than the USA and UK combined. They only have a population of 320,000 (now), so a lot less back then, so you can see how many a few thousand people's deaths would compare to the total population.

Iceland suffered their economic crisis between October 2008 and the 31 August 2011, which was the day where the international bailout support programme led by the IMF officially ended.

The economic crisis revolved around a few Icelandic banks which were offering stupidly high rates of interest which attracted many foreign investors including many UK local authorities. Our dear leader of the time, Gordon Brown, had told them to invest their money in the highest paying interest accounts they could find. The Icelandic banks were offering high rates and were thus used by many.

The problem was that these rates of interest were totally unrealistic and there was no security for screw ups. In the UK we get up to £85,000 protected if the bank goes bust. So the Government bails small account holders out up to that sum. However Iceland failed to do this for foreign investors and it sent Brown and co fuming.

Every taxi driver I spoke to said that anyone with half a brain cell could see these banks high interest schemes would fail in the end and they eventually did. However Gordon Brown was having none of it. The UK along with the Dutch, demanded that Iceland pay back all the monies owed with interest or they would be thrown out the IMF.

Gordon Brown froze any Icelandic money in UK banks and used anti-terrorism laws to do so. This prompted the Iceland's prime minister Geir Haarde to call it "a completely unfriendly act" and was disgusted that a supposedly friendly nation was calling their country terrorists.

More than 25% of the Icelandic population (over 80,000 people) signed an online petition called "Icelanders are not terrorists". The UK responded by cancelling its scheduled patrol of the Icelandic airspace in December 2008. As Iceland has no standing army of its own it relies on other NATO nations to take turns in protecting it. The UK pulled out of this agreement leaving Iceland vulnerable to attack.

Iceland basically stuck two fingers up at these threats, kicked their whole government out when they seemed to bend over to the demands and took matters into their own hands by voting in a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement.

They even won a court case in the court of the European Free trade Area, when the UK and Holland took Iceland to court over the failure to payback depositors in the failed banks. The court ruled on the 29th January 2013 in favour of the Icelandic banks and saved the country from having to pay back billions to foreign savers.

The EFTA court dismissed an application by the EFTA surveillance authority, which claimed that Iceland had failed to comply with an obligation to ensure compensation of a minimum €20,000 to Icesave depositors in the UK and Netherlands. Over €6.7 billion was owed to UK and Dutch investors and whilst the UK paid back the investors out of their own tax payers money, they then demanded that Iceland was to pay back the money to them.

However logic and reason won the day and when Iceland's President's Olafur Grimsson refused to sign an amended law on repayment he forced a national referendum on the issue and 94% of Icelanders rejected the move to payback the cash.

The judges have sided with Iceland in the matter and it was plainly obvious that the rates of interest were unsustainable and a payback to foreign depositors was unfeasible. The Iceland banks are actually paying back some of the money by selling off assets so that people won't lose out - it is just the unrealistic rates of interest that won't be given back to savers.

At the time the crisis resulted in massive migration from Iceland yet Iceland's economy stabilized under the government of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, and GDP actually grew by 1.6% in 2012. However many Icelanders remained unhappy with the state of the economy and government austerity policies. In 2013 they voted back in the same people who were in power during the crisis, the centre-right Independence Party but in coalition with the Progressive Party.

Relative to the size of its economy, Iceland’s systemic banking collapse was the largest suffered by any country in history. The amount of money owed by the 3 Icelandic banks taken into national ownership was equal to more than 11 times Icelandic GDP.

They also threw a load of banksters into prison - can you see a trend here? These people included:

• Baldur Guðlaugsson, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, who was sentenced to two years probation by the District Court of Reykjavík for insider trading.
• Aron Karlsson was sentenced to 2 years in prison by the District Court of Reykjavík for defrauding Arion Bank in real estate dealings.
• Lárus Welding, CEO of Glitnir, and Guðmundur Hjaltason, Managing Director of Corporate Banking of Glitnir, were sentenced to 9 months in prison by the District Court of Reykjavík for a major breach of trust.
• Friðfinnur Ragnar Sigurðsson, Glitnir employee, was sentenced to 1 year in prison by the District Court of Reykjanes for insider trading.
• Styrmi Þór Bragason, President of MP Bank, was sentenced to 1 year in prison by the Supreme Court for breach of trust.

The other thing to note is that whilst Ireland and Greece are now suffering like hell due to their Governments subservience to the banksters and their German EU masters Iceland is recovering well.

Instead of loading future generations up to the eyeballs with huge debt, and suffering serve austerity like many European countries Iceland is well on the way to recovery.

They have had one of the fastest economic recoveries on record. They stuck to their guns and told the banksters to fuck off. This is a lesson others should follow.


GDP of Nordic countries including Iceland from 2000 to 2007

Not only do the Icelandic people do things their way, but they are the leaders in the world for press freedom and Internet freedom.

Everywhere I went, whether it was the airport, the bus from the airport, the hotel, pubs, clubs or restaurants, all had free WI-FI. No logons just Internet access wherever I went, it was great.

No wonder many companies who don't want hassle from the NSA/GCHQ nexus of spy bitches base their servers there. It's just a shame we are sucking data straight from cables and main routers and until other countries build their own Internet infrastructure the axis of spying will continue to do so.

It is also not coincidence that the owner of Lavabit, who closed his business rather than succumb to threats to spy on his customers, was told by his lawyers that Iceland was one place he could move to and setup his business to escape NSA spying and Security Letters.

You can watch his interview on RT.com below.


The fact that anti-terrorism laws were used and abused by Gordon Brown shows that their true intention was nothing to do with terror but more to do with control over people.

The same laws were used to attack an 82 year man who dared protest the Iraq war during a Labour conference. Walter Wolfgang was dragged out of the conference for daring to heckle Jack Straw and detained under the terrorism act in 2005. They were also repeatedly used by the previous Labour government to detain and question tourists and other photographers "daring" to take photos of London landmarks.

Gordon Brown was only following in the foot steps of Tony Blair, the war mongerer who took us into 4 wars, destroyed many civil liberties and did more to destroy the picture of Labour as the "peoples party" than any other Prime Minister in recent years.

However whilst the UK is languishing in debt, the Greeks are begging on the streets and the Irish are cutting back services and trying to find ways to pay back their own banking debts the Icelandic people are doing just fine.

If you don't mind the cold, enjoy beautiful women and scenery then Iceland is one place to definitely consider going. Not only is everyone friendly but they all speak English and everyone I met was a good laugh. The fact that booze is so expensive yet the Icelandic people knock it back in gallons from 10pm to 6 am most nights must indicate that people are being paid enough to have a good time.

So whilst I had to apologise for my Governments behaviour constantly, I also let the Icelandic people know we also hated the Labour Government just as much as they do.

The fact that we are still suffering under many of Labours big brother laws, and that the farcical Protection of Freedoms Bill which promised so much when a Lib Dem idea yet turned into a "freedom from wheelclamping" bill just goes to show that none of our current political parties can be trusted when it comes to protecting our civil liberties and hard-won rights.

So just remember the next time the Daily Mail or Sun attacks the EU Human Rights Act or our PM threatens to pull out of it. We invented the thing in the first place after the 2nd world war. On top of that these rights protect you and me as well as the tiny minority of Jihadists the papers like to trot out as examples of the bill's failure. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater is the appropriate saying!

We don't have a written Bill of Rights like the American's (not that it seems to be doing much to help them anymore) so we must take what we can.

Until we get our own Bill of Rights and proper protection of free speech, without journalists boyfriends being detained at airports for revealing the massive spying our Government does on us, we should be happy for anyone who sticks up for our liberty.

The Icelandic people saw us as friends. When Gordon Brown froze their money it made it hard for them to import goods and prices shot up in their country. His act did more to harm them than the banking crisis in the first place.

The fact that a court sided with them just shows that he was in the wrong and they were right to ignore his demands.

Well done Iceland.

View the original article Why Icelandic people hate Gordon Brown at darkpolitricks.com.

Did our PM David Cameron do the right thing for the UK?

By Dark Politricks

For those of you that have a worldview that exists outside your national boundaries (I'm talking to you USA), then you may have heard about a little thing called the European Sovereign Debt crisis. This is the huge financial mess that is moving once proud nations from democracies to mere subsidiaries of Frano/German power on an almost weekly basis.

For the UK, this is worrying to many people for many reasons. Not only are we not members of the Euro, and have no wish to be, but the move of power from nation states like Greece and Italy to Germany horrifies the Daily Mail crowd. The thought that Europe is going to end up being controlled by the same nation we fought two world wars against without a shot even being fired horrifies many people of an older generation.

For the younger generation the fact Germany is a powerful country is not so much a problem as the lack of democracy that is inherent in the European institutions that encroach on our daily lives more and more year by year. Whilst it is fair to say UKIP attracts an older fan base than other political parties their underlying message of UK sovereignty versus Brussels Diktats is one that resonates across generations. Anyone who believes in small government, democracy or having a say in how your own life is run has a lot to complain about when it comes to the European Union.

Forgetting that Germany is actually the only real industrial power making quality goods left in Europe, we should be concerned that this financial crisis is being used by Euro fanatics and bureaucrats to bring about their dream of a United States of Europe - something that has been attempted by many from the Roman Empire, Napolean, Hitler and now personality devoid bureaucrats like our "president" Herman Van Rompuy and his fellow pen pushing globalists.

When it comes to conquering the European continent it truly does seem that the pen is mightier than the sword.

So far we have seen two once proud nations, the originators of democracy i.e Greece, and the last successful rulers of the continent, Italy, fall to the plans of European dreamers along with the help of those dastardly Bond vigilantes under the weight of their sovereign debts.

The threat of unsustainable debt levels and high interest rates has seen their governments fall and their democratically elected leaders replaced with more pliable and "acceptable" leaders, much to the disgust of their nations people. Riots and protest marches are becoming daily occurrences all over this continent and will only occur more frequently the worse this mess gets.

So for the millionth time this year, European Prime Ministers, heads of state and top Eurocrats met once again to come up with yet another "final plan" to solve the crisis, calm the markets and keep their dream of a United European Super State on track.

This last sumit of Europeans leaders was meant to be the final drink in the last chance saloon and during the run up leaders of France and Germany, Sarkozy and Merkel (now branded and probably trademarked: Merkozy), were both declaring that there was only a few hours to "save the Euro".

Many people were hoping that they would fail for reasons other than financial instability it may cause in the short term and it seems David Cameron, the UK PM has delivered his backbencher Euro-sceptics desires on a silver platter by vetoing an EU-wide treaty change designed to tackle the euro-zone crisis.

He claimed changes to the much hated Lisbon Treaty that would have given up even more UK sovereignty to the EU was not in the countries best interests due to  due to it's tougher budget rules and a plan to implement a "Tobin tax" that would have affected the City of London unfairly.

David Cameron explained his reasoning:

"We were offered a treaty that didn't have proper safeguards for Britain, and I decided it was not right to sign that treaty," he told the BBC.

"We're still in the single market. That is the best safeguard of keeping markets open," he said.

Its main provisions include:

• A cap of 0.5% of GDP on countries' annual structural deficits.
• "automatic consequences" for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP.
• The tighter rules to be enshrined in countries' constitutions.
• The EU's permanent bailout facility, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), to be accelerated and brought into force in July 2012.
• The adequacy of 500bn-euro (£427bn; $666bn) limit for the ESM to be reassessed.
• Eurozone and other EU countries to provide up to 200bn euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help debt-stricken eurozone members

Being outside the Euro it is understandable that the UK does not want to join a fiscal union with nations using the Euro but a tax on financial transactions could have been a good solution if implemented world wide for many reasons.

• Merkozy was right when they rebuffed Cameron's veto by claiming that the financial crisis they were trying to sort out was mainly caused by large financial institutions going crazy over leveraging their assets, engaging in automated trading and other forms of risky speculation and dubious financial behaviour. Merkozy's plans which included a form of a Tobin tax would help reduce the exact kind of risky transactions Cameron was trying to obtain an opt-out for the City of London.

• The Tobin tax would go a long way to help fill the coffers of nations who are now suffering "austerity" measures due to the taxpayer bailing out these same financial institutions therefore it would placate many people who are currently outraged that the banksters have been able to bankrupt whole nations, place the burden of paying back the debts on taxpayers and who continue to pay themselves huge salaries and bonuses without seeming to realise or care that they have done anything wrong.

• The large majority of financial trading is automated, computers trading with other computers and the practise of high frequency trading and front running legitimate trades has been a major source of concern for those who are aware of the practise.

• A Tobin tax on these particular types of trades that were only held for a few seconds at most rather than all financial transactions would not hurt legitimate investments, pensions firms and other long term investors but it would help reduce the amount of risk that comes about from computers making trading decisions. As a programmer of automated systems  myself I know that any program can make erroneous mistakes if certain circumstances arise that a human would spot and many economic commentators have spoken about the huge drops in stock markets that occur every now and then that are blamed on trading systems following other computers once a trigger initiates a sell off.

• The UK economy is too unbalanced and basically relies on financial services for a huge portion of its GDP and tax revenue. The coalition government was supposed to come up with a plan to help reduce this reliance on financial services and create a more balanced economy by increasing high tech industry, exporting more goods and increasing the size of the private sector in relation with to the public sector.

• A tax on the very businesses that make our country the most money (which logically are also the same companies that can obviously afford to pay it as their recent profits and bonuses reveal) as well as being the same businesses that helped caused the mess we are in would go a long way to helping restore public trust in that part of our economy. It would also satisfy a growing public lust for some form of justice in the face of massive cuts to public services, tax rises, rising inflation and increasing unemployment and the sorry sight of not a single bankster going to jail!

Obviously at the moment our governments plan to re balance the economy has gone nowhere and the UK is still overly reliant on the City for revenue generation and in these regards it was probably wise for Cameron to put our own interests above those of the Euro members.

However much commentators have lamented his actions as destroying Britain's place in Europe at the decision making table  it was always going to happen sooner or later unless we joined the single currency.

No-one can expect a non member of a monetary union between multiple states to have an equal say over how that group of states is run and how close they work together. In the same way that closely integrated group of countries cannot expect to apply the same rules they obey to countries outside their common fiscal and monetary policies.

Cameron obviously believes in these difficult times it would hurt our stagnated economy more than help it by implementing extra taxes on the City of London and it would be politically unwise to agree to treaty changes that would trigger an in-party war over Europe, a possible breakup of the coalition and due to new laws a public referendum.

If the rest of Europe wishes to give up their national sovereignty to save a doomed currency then so be it but I doubt many citizens across Europe will be happy.

Little by little their national governments are becoming little more than talking shops and  real decisions about their economy and other key policy areas are now made by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg with the Germans having the loudest voice.

As the BBC Editor Gavin Hewitt succinctly put it:

"For the European people, they are in a closer Europe than they ever voted for".

From this point of view David Cameron has pleased his Euro-sceptic back benches and many UK citizens who have never even had a chance to vote on their countries participation in a political pipe dream that was concocted during the ashes of the second world war designed to prevent Germany from ever again becoming the dominant power within Europe.

Whether or not Cameron and the UK go their own way, the other 26 members of the EU seem to be willing to sign up for closer economic and political union which will be done by multiple inter-country treaties due to Cameron's veto instead of a single EU treaty.

However countries such as Ireland which have already been enslaved by Euro debt relief have to put any European treaty to a referndum so there may be more countries standing with the UK than there currently are and the talk of the UK being isolated could just be a temporary situation.

More and more people are realising that the Euro is slowing crumbling and whilst a disorganised disintegration may cause immense distress and disruption the UK should be better placed than it's European partners to weather the storm that is undoubtedly brewing across the channel.