Iceland's economic revolution - a spectacle of the world's moneylenders

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Recently, the "Icelandic phenomenon" has been increasingly discussed, as if a quiet economic revolution of the people against the world financial oligarchy took place in this country. It all started with the fact that in the early 2000s. Iceland experienced a rapid economic growth, the country of the hills was called the new economic miracle of the European Union.

But already following the 2008 crisis, Iceland suddenly went bankrupt. The external debt of Icelandic banks amounted to € 3.5 billion, which is 10 times the country's GDP, the krone has lost 85% of its value against the euro. The Icelanders did not want to pay the banks' debts, took to the streets, protests broke out, riots, in the end, forced the government to resign.

In March 2010, a referendum was held, the Icelanders decided not to return funds to foreign creditors - the UK and the Netherlands and to prosecute financiers who did not have time to flee the country. The inhabitants of the country even rewrote the constitution, and, according to the new project, the natural resources of the island are exclusively in public ownership.

And here is the final chord at the end of October 2015, the Supreme Court of Iceland convicted 26 bankers and officials for crimes committed on the eve of the financial collapse of 2008, and these are not ordinary bank employees, but top management.

How Great Britain "forgave" the debts to the Icelandic people, and can any other country, including Russia, which has fallen into slavery to the "owners of money" through the fault of "economic murderers", take advantage of the Icelandic precedent? we asked the permanent expert of Nakanune. RU, MGIMO professor, publicist and well-known economist Valentin Katasonov, he believes that not everything is so simple in this "economic revolution".

Question: Valentin Yuryevich, an interesting story took place in Iceland, and the world mass media cover it very sparingly. We can say there is an economic revolution. What do you think of the phenomenal victory of the Icelandic people over world capital?

Valentin Katasonov:From my point of view, this is some kind of performance organized by the world's usurers. I would say that this is some kind of preparation - the creation of a precedent for a case that may occur in the future. Because the second wave of the financial crisis will lead to the fact that there will not be enough money in the Central Banks and in the Treasuries, and about how to save those banks, which they call "too big to fail", "too big to die", speech will not, moreover, now the American Congress is passing a bill called "too big to fail, too big to live" banks, which are too big to live. The point is, perhaps, to carry out the unbundling of banks so that a single bank does not inflict such a strong blow on the economy.

What happened in Iceland. The following happened in Iceland - in 2008 r.the first wave of the financial crisis from America went to Europe. Iceland was the first line of defense, and it touched those same Icelandic banks, it was necessary to act quickly. Then it was decided that such banks would go bankrupt, while the state did not undertake the obligation to repay the debts of these banks, these were de facto offshore banks, and the clients of these banks were individuals or legal entities, primarily from England, European and non-European countries. In terms of what small Icelandic peopledefeated the world bankers, it sounds a little funny, especially since I studied the individual figures who participated in that performance. These are people associated not with the people, but with the banking world. I even wrote an article called "A Revolution Dictated by World Bankers." In principle, it was enough to land one battalion in Iceland in order to stop all these processions. This was not done. In other countries, for much more modest reasons, not only battalions, but entire armies landed. And here, as a matter of fact, everything went quietly and peacefully, no one particularly pressed on IcelandApparently, the owners of the money needed it to create a precedent.

Question: And what about the bankers - have the top managers been prosecuted, a precedent?

Valentin Katasonov: I am aware that this is indeed some kind of precedent that has entered the category of anomalies of modern capitalism, because in the same America in recent years, since the beginning of the financial crisis 2007 year, not a single Wall Street banker was behind bars. No one. I specially studied this question. Congressmen in USA tried to raise the issue of criminal responsibility of the Wall Street bankers, but not a hair fell from their heads. But in Iceland, apparently, they decided to create such a precedent. But events in Iceland they are not advertised at all, even among specialists not everyone knows that such a nationalization of banks was carried out in Iceland. Well, take Cyprus, for example, because a precedent was also created there, a kind of preparation, when a partial confiscation of funds from deposits was carried out. It can still "shoot" in due time. We now live in such an era when the classical banking system is already dying. And apparently, it will be replaced by something else, therefore, if the second wave of the financial crisis begins, then these very giant banks will begin to die out like dinosaurs. It will already be difficult to save them. And, in fact, maybe in this new situation, these very top managers of the largest banks will also not be very needed for the owners of the money. And the owners of the money themselves will already be called something else. Let's say " new world slave owners " or "new masters of the world", something like this. It is impossible to answer your questions without trying to outline the future of the world, the future of the world is calculated not on the basis of some linear processes, but here some revolutionary changes may be that are not taken into account.

Question: And if we talk not about the future, but about the present day - can the PIGS countries, for example, take advantage of Iceland's experience?

Valentin Katasonov: In fact, of course, this can be done, but at the same time it must be perfectly understood that the world masters of money allowed Iceland to conduct such an experiment. And if one of the PIGS countries thinks that repeating this experiment will be so easy, then they, of course, are deeply mistaken. Here it can simply come to a bloody civil war. And the example of, say, our Central Bank shows how tough they are on the defensive. Because formally our Central Bank is not private, but a state one, but, in fact, it has been privatized by the owners of money, namely the US Federal Reserve, which, as you understand, is not a state structure. Such things can only be understood in a global context. Therefore, I want to say that, of course, the slogan of nationalization is relevant, but at the same time it must be understood that nationalization can take place in the conditions of Russia, but with very tough resistance. Very tough.

Question: Well, yes, for some reason Iceland was threatened - UK and Holland threatened in the event of refusal to pay debts of Icelandic banks to their citizens with severe economic sanctions, up to the complete isolation of the country. The IMF threatened to deprive Iceland of any of its aid, the British government threatened to freeze the savings and checking accounts of Icelanders. But the threats were empty - why?

Valentin Katasonov: The fact is that the owners of the money just got together and decided that it is possible donate Iceland … Then it was necessary to act quickly, because they were trying to stop the development of financial crises, and, perhaps, now they would have done something differently, but then events took place rapidly - literally within one or two weeks.

Question: What happened then in 2008? Crisis or work on the country "economic killers"?

Valentin Katasonov: At the beginning of the 2000s, Iceland embarked on a new path, it began to turn into an offshore company, it actually began to degrade as a traditional economy, in which fishing was in the first place, and tourism was in second place. Well, tourism has been preserved, and fishing has already begun to "bend". They just started specializing in financial transactions, formally indicators of gross domestic product Iceland began to grow sharply, but you yourself understand - there was a financial bubble. And this financial bubble, in fact, collapsed into 2008, but if you delve into the archives, in the materials of the beginning of the zero years, the middle of the zero years - Iceland was exhibited everywhere as a showcase of Europeas an economic miracle country, without explaining that this economic miracle is actually just a financial bubble. Maybe for this reason, they did not just want people to understand that there was no economic miracle in Iceland.

Question: But "economic killers" usually work with third world countries, they say that Iceland was the first developed country where such schemes were implemented?

Valentin Katasonov: Economic assassins have worked in Greece as well. It should also be understood that Greece fell into this financial trap for the reason that the guys from Goldman Sachs came there, and they, in fact, offered money, loans, which were not reflected in the statistics of Greece's external debt. That is, they put Greece on the needle, and then, sooner or later, it emerged anyway - it turned out that Greece had violated all Marseilles standards, that Greece should be almost excluded from the European Union altogether. So we can say that Greece is an example of how economic killers came to the country and actually put them under their control.

Question: But the economic killers - who are they? How do they destroy the country's economy?

Valentin Katasonov: Economic killer is a term that was coined John Perkins, John Perkins wrote a book in the early 2000s " The Story of an Economic Killer " … It clearly describes who the "economic killers" are.

These are people who represent the interests of the largest banks and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Their main task is to put the country on a debt needle, and John Perkins worked in one of these structures that served the interests of, as I understand it, the International Monetary Fund. The technology was quite simple - the carrot and stick method. These guys came to the country and offered interesting terms of loans to the first persons of the state. Interesting - I mean that they acted with some kind of kickbacks, some kind of offshore accounts. If the first persons refused - well then, it means that there were threats against these persons, and John Perkins says that we were, roughly speaking, the first wave, were the first team, if we could not resolve the issue positively in the interests of the world's creditors, then the second team came - these are the special services that "rammed" the top officials, used compromising evidence, used methods intimidation and even murder. And if the second team did not cope, then the third team entered into action, and this is, in fact, armed aggression.

Question: And in Of Russia they have already worked in 90s biennium?

Valentin Katasonov: Of course, we worked, and, as a rule, everything was successful there even at the first stage. In rare cases, the second stage was also involved. So Russia is well hooked on loans, and loans did not reach Russia - the famous loan IMF in the amount of $ 4.8-5 billion did not reach Russia at all, but, nevertheless, the debt was hung on Russia. So - these are just "economic killers".

Question: We, just like the people of Iceland, can we do something?

Valentin Katasonov: You know, there is no need to idealize the people of Iceland so much, because there is "no people" in Iceland. I specially studied this issue, there was a woman who was a homosexual all the time, she married a woman, and the people there became so corrupted in the zero years, although Icelanders, indeed, were once such strong and strong people. Iceland can be shown as an example of how people can be corrupted in a fairly short time. Therefore, idealizing him and presenting him as some kind of "fighters" with the international financial international is very naive. They are incapable of serious confrontation with the financial international. And our people seem to be stronger - there are more of us and we are stronger. But in relation to us, the owners of money will act very harshly.