Iceland

[Endovelico]

Iceland thumbs nose at international opposition to advance $1.2 billion debt relief plan

Iceland’s government has announced that it will be writing off up to 24,000 euros ($32,600) of every household’s mortgage, fulfilling its election promise, despite overwhelming criticism from international financial institutions.

The measure was introduced by the country’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the leader of the Progressive Party which won the late-April elections on a promise of household debt relief.

According to the government’s website the household debt will be reduced by 13 percent on average.

Citizens of Iceland have been suffering from debt since the 2008 financial crisis, which led to high borrowing costs after the collapse of the krona against other currencies.

“Currently, household debt is equivalent to 108 percent of GDP, which is high by international comparison,” highlighted a government statement, according to AFP. "The action will boost household disposable income and encourage savings.”

The government said that the debt relief will begin by mid-2014 and according to estimates the measure is set to cost $1.2 billion in total. It will be spread out over four years.

The financing plan for the program has not yet been laid out. However, Gunnlaugsson has promised that public finances will not be put at risk. It was initially proposed that the foreign creditors of Icelandic banks would pay for the measure.

International organizations have confronted the idea with criticism. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have advised against it, citing economic concerns.

Iceland has “little fiscal space for additional household debt relief” according to the IMF, while the OECD stated that Iceland should limit its mortgage relief to low-income households.

In the meantime, ratings service, Standard & Poor's, cut back on its outlook for Iceland's long-term credit rating to negative from stable, stating that the economic measure could affect the confidence of foreign investors if it ends up being paid for by the existing creditors of Icelandic banks.

http://rt.com/news/iceland-debt-relief-measure-535/

[Heracleum Persicum]

Iceland thumbs nose at international opposition to advance $1.2 billion debt relief plan

Iceland’s government has announced that it will be writing off up to 24,000 euros ($32,600) of every household’s mortgage, fulfilling its election promise, despite overwhelming criticism from international financial institutions.

The measure was introduced by the country’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the leader of the Progressive Party which won the late-April elections on a promise of household debt relief.

According to the government’s website the household debt will be reduced by 13 percent on average.

Citizens of Iceland have been suffering from debt since the 2008 financial crisis, which led to high borrowing costs after the collapse of the krona against other currencies.

“Currently, household debt is equivalent to 108 percent of GDP, which is high by international comparison,” highlighted a government statement, according to AFP. "The action will boost household disposable income and encourage savings.”

The government said that the debt relief will begin by mid-2014 and according to estimates the measure is set to cost $1.2 billion in total. It will be spread out over four years.

The financing plan for the program has not yet been laid out. However, Gunnlaugsson has promised that public finances will not be put at risk. It was initially proposed that the foreign creditors of Icelandic banks would pay for the measure.

International organizations have confronted the idea with criticism. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have advised against it, citing economic concerns.

Iceland has “little fiscal space for additional household debt relief” according to the IMF, while the OECD stated that Iceland should limit its mortgage relief to low-income households.

In the meantime, ratings service, Standard & Poor's, cut back on its outlook for Iceland's long-term credit rating to negative from stable, stating that the economic measure could affect the confidence of foreign investors if it ends up being paid for by the existing creditors of Icelandic banks.

http://rt.com/news/iceland-debt-relief-measure-535/

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"It was initially proposed that the foreign creditors of Icelandic banks would pay for the measure."


That can happen everywhere

In fact, looks to me, that is the plan in America

to come up with a BS excuse, freeze Arab and Chinese Dollar holdings (all Dollar holdings in the world kept in FED), pass some terrorist law, send half to Israel and the other half pay down American household mortgages .. everybody would be happy, those bad bad "red Chinese" and f*cking Arabs

Those thinking this a joke, should ask themselves, what happened to (3 generation) American-Japanese ? ? .. they were interned, all asset confiscated (and sold), 60 yrs later came an apology but the asset was gone, in Canada there was not even an apology, the assets now owned by billionaire Canadians (was used car sells-man way back)

Well, that's life, folks


That in Iceland really funny .. tax payers pay individual's mortgages ? ? ? .. in reality Brits and Germans will pay

BTW, how do Icelanders make a living, doing what ? ?

.

[noddy]

azari - they have strong natural resource exports and a small population, the only reason they ended up in trouble was the usual bank nonsense in regards the GFC and the absurdities of modern finance flows.

they are much like australia or canada in that regard, not world powerhouses but blessed with a good ratio of solid exports to people and will do fine once the smoke clears.

their are many who think they actually might end up as rich and powerful as the saudis (new zealand also) because of their geo thermal abundance, if and when we ever get fuel cells working commerically they are sitting on the gold mine of ultra cheap energy,

[Nonc Hilaire]

Can you imagine participating in a protest outside the White House and forcing the entire U.S. government to resign? Can you imagine a group of randomly chosen private citizens rewriting the U.S. constitution to include measures banning corporate fraud? It seems incomprehensible in the U.S., but Icelanders did just that. Icelanders forced their entire government to resign after a banking fraud scandal, overthrowing the ruling party and creating a citizen’s group tasked with writing a new constitution that offered a solution to prevent corporate greed from destroying the country. The constitution of Iceland was scrapped and is being rewritten by private citizens; using a crowd-sourcing technique via social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. These events have been going on since 2008, yet there’s been no word from the U.S. mainstream media about any of them. In fact, all of the events that unfolded were recorded by international journalists, overseas news bureaus, citizen journalists and bloggers. This has created current accusations of an intentional cover up of the story by mainstream U.S. news sources.

http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/icelander ... -us-media/

[YMix]

Iceland jails former Kaupthing bank bosses

Four former bosses from the Icelandic bank Kaupthing have been sentenced to between three and five years in prison.

They are the former chief executive, the chairman of the board, one of the majority owners and the chief executive of the Luxembourg branch.

They were accused of hiding the fact that a Qatari investor bought a stake in the firm with money lent - illegally - by the bank itself.

Kaupthing collapsed in 2008 under the weight of huge debts.

For years, Kaupthing and other Icelandic banks had aggressively pursued overseas expansion plans, but when they went into administration, they brought the country's economy to its knees.

Just a few weeks before the collapse, Kaupthing announced that Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Bin Hamad al-Thani had bought a 5.1% stake during the financial crisis in 2008.

The move was seen as a confidence boost for the bank.
Legal costs

Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the former chief executive, received five and a half years, while Sigurdur Einarsson, former chairman of the board, was sentenced to five years in jail.

These are the heaviest sentences for financial fraud in Iceland's history.

The court gave Olafur Olafsson, one of the majority owners three years and Magnus Gudmundsson the former chief executive of the Luxembourg branch, three and a half years.

None of them were in court for the decision but it is expected that they will appeal.

The four were also made to pay their own legal costs for the case, which amount to millions of pounds.

The special prosecutor, Olafur Hauksson, said the deal had influenced the bank's share price. He also said the loans provided for the deal were illegal.

Mr Hauksson told the BBC that there was still another, bigger case against Kaupthing Bank ongoing, in which it is accused of market manipulation. It is due to come to court at the end of January.
Deceived

Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander was the UK arm of Kaupthing Bank - the largest of the Icelandic banks that went into administration in October 2008.

According to the Icelandic media, the charges state that the deal was done by first depositing a loan from Kaupthing bank into shell companies in the British Virgin Islands.

The money then went from there to a Cypriot based company called Choice, which was owned by Olafsson, Sheikh al-Thani and al-Thani's adviser.

From there it was moved to another firm called Q Iceland Finance, also owned by al-Thani, and then finally ended up back in the bank to pay for the shares.

It was never publicly stated that the company owned by Olafsson was party to the deal.

Sheikh al-Thani did not testify but he gave a statement to the prosecutors. In it, he said he did not know of any direct involvement by Olafsson to the deal.

Al-Thani's lawyers, who made an agreement with Kaupthing's administrators, said he considered himself to have been deceived.

Excellent.

[Endovelico]

Three charts that show Iceland's economy recovered after it imprisoned bankers and let banks go bust - instead of bailing them out
by Hazel Sheffield - Wednesday 10 June 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 09503.html


Iceland’s finance minister has announced a 39 per cent tax on investors looking to take their money overseas.

The country has imposed the tax to prevent it hemorrhaging money as it loosens bank laws imposed six years ago, when Iceland made the shocking decision to let its banks go bust.

Iceland also allowed bankers to be prosecuted as criminals – in contrast to the US and Europe, where banks were fined, but chief executives escaped punishment.

The chief executive, chairman, Luxembourg ceo and second largest shareholder of Kaupthing, an Icelandic bank that collapsed, were sentenced in February to between four and five years in prison for market manipulation.


"Why should we have a part of our society that is not being policed or without responsibility?" said special prosecutor Olafur Hauksson at the time. "It is dangerous that someone is too big to investigate - it gives a sense there is a safe haven."

Bailing on bail out

While the UK government nationalised Lloyds and RBS with tax-payers’ money and the US government bought stakes in its key banks, Iceland adopted a different approach. It said it would shore up domestic bank accounts. Everyone else was left to fight over the remaining cash.

It also imposed capital controls restricting what ordinary people could do with their money– a measure some saw as a violation of free market economics.

The plan worked. Iceland took a huge financial hit, just like every other country caught in the crisis.

Islândia 1.JPG (37.93 KiB) Viewed 2085 times

This year the International Monetary Fund declared that Iceland had achieved economic recovery 'without compromising its welfare model' of universal healthcare and education.

Other measures of progress like the country’s unemployment rate, compare just as well with countries like the US.

Iceland's unemployment rate compares well

Islândia 2.JPG (31.52 KiB) Viewed 2085 times

Rather than maintaining the value of the krona artificially, Iceland chose to accept inflation.

This pushed prices higher at home but helped exports abroad – in contrast to many countries in the EU, which are now fighting deflation, or prices that keep decreasing year on year.

Islândia 3.JPG (25.87 KiB) Viewed 2085 times

This year, Iceland will become the first European country that hit crisis in 2008 to beat its pre-crisis peak of economic output.

With the reduction of capital controls – tempered by the 39 per cent tax – it continues to make progress.

"Today is a milestone, a very happy milestone," Iceland’s finance minister Bjarni Benediktsson told the Guardian when he announced the tax.

[Parodite]

[Doc]

Technically this is North America But when it comes to mother nature when she has go to go she has got to go. Best not get in her way

boom.jpg (168 KiB) Viewed 1522 times

I literally missed this live by a minute or two. I had this live stream running and left the room for a few minutes When I came back there was still just one vent. 12 minutes later the erupting fissure was around a mile long.

I walked in the room about here:

boom2.jpg (128.66 KiB) Viewed 1522 times

The original eruption started around at 22:17:00 in the Live stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF44Z7wta-s

Now the fissure is miles long and may still be expading

boom3.jpg (145.19 KiB) Viewed 1521 times

The glow in the back ground is lava

[Doc]

New eruption in Iceland almost certainly dooms town of Grindavik.

Tragic but incredible sun rise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03yslGRq6g

The fissure has gone right through the lava dike that was built in the hope it would save the town.

grindavik.png (516.99 KiB) Viewed 623 times

Little known fact many of the families of Grindavik are refugees of a 1970's eruption on Heimaey island to the south. With out the fortunate event of the fishing fleet being in port on the Island at the rime of the eruption 100's would have likely died. Twice in 50 years. They are fighters though. During the eruption on the Island they came up with the idea of pumping sea water onto the lava to solidify it in place to save the fishing port. And they succeeded. Though I take it there was not enough left of the village for everyone to go back so many took up residence in Grindavik.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghl33n26d44

1973 Iceland Volcanic Eruption

312,316 views May 8, 2010
The 1973 Icelandic eruption caused a major crisis for the island and nearly led to its permanent evacuation. Volcanic ash fell over most of the island, destroying many houses, and a lava flow threatened to close off the harbour, the island's main income source via its fishing fleet. An operation was mounted to cool the advancing lava flow by pumping sea water onto it, which was successful in preventing the loss of the harbour. After the eruption finished, the islanders used heat from the slowly cooling lava flows to provide hot water and to generate electricity. They also used some of the extensive tephra, fall-out of airborne volcanic material, to extend the runway at the island's small airport, and as landfill, on which 200 new houses were built. The eruption also formed Eldfell, a composite volcanic cone just over 200 metres (660 ft) high on the Icelandic island of Heimaey. It formed just outside the town of Heimaey on 23 January1973 and its name means Mountain of Fire in Icelandic.

I really wanted to go see the 2021 eruption from about a mile away like the people in the video below.
It absolutely and incredibly ended like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOIJFFT9kw

MOST AWESOME VIEW ON EARTH

[Parodite]

A nice movie to illustrate it all:

Godland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hot2tpLLOc