Iceland didn’t follow the rest of the world by bailing out bankers. Surprisingly, they arrested them instead. Now their economy is recovering faster than the EU and the United States.
Remember when the United States government told the American people that action was required to save the banks? Action in the form of Billions of dollars of debt. Hard to forget that. Hundreds of Billions of dollars in National debt later were still digging our way out of the hole.
At the start of the world wide 2008 economic collapse, Iceland was in worse shape than almost any other country in the world.
Imagine what America would be like today if we bailed out the victims of poor banking practices, while punishing the bankers who were responsible instead of bailing them out.
After watching this video tell us what you think? Is Iceland merely being a rebel desperate for revenge against a powerful industry, or on to something that America should have done as well?
"For all the fearmongering we hear out of our politicians on the right about how heaven forbid we're going to turn into Greece, the one country you never hear them talk about any more is Iceland. The reason they don't is, as Cenk Uygur explained on his show this Tuesday, they took a different path than the United States after their financial crisis and nationalized the banks, threw some the people responsible for the crash in jail and bailed out the homeowners instead of worrying about only bailing out the banks. And now they're coming back and their economy is growing again...".*
I thought all US banks were required to pay back the money they borrowed during the bailouts
10-03-2012, 04:06 PM
food for thought
looks like they found a loop hole
Quote:
Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report
The Huffington Post Mark Gongloff
First Posted: 03/ 9/2012 2:22 pm Updated: 03/ 9/2012 2:23 pm
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Though lots of people grumble about the government bailing out banks in the financial crisis, we have at least taken some comfort in the idea that the government has turned a profit on that bailout.
Only problem is, that profit comes from taxpayer money -- money that was meant to spur banks to develop communities and help small businesses. Instead they've used it to develop and help themselves.
All told, including dividend, interest and other payments, U.S. banks have repaid the government $211.5 billion under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), the first phase of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), according to a report Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog. That's more than the $204.9 billion the banks initially got under TARP.
$211.5 billion minus $204.9 billion equals profit, right?
But 48 percent of the banks that have repaid the CPP used money they'd gotten from other federal programs, according to the GAO report. Those programs include the Community Development Capital Initiative -- another TARP program -- and the Small Business Lending Fund, a program designed to encourage lending to small businesses. Both of those programs have more favorable borrowing terms for the banks than the original CPP.
This isn't a new issue -- The Wall Street Journal reported last October that banks were repaying TARP funds with cash earmarked for small-business loans, after the Independent Community Bankers of America lobbied for the ability to switch money "from one Treasury program to the other."
Small businesses have continued to struggle to get credit, a drag on the recovery, while banks have been using funds earmarked for lending to small businesses simply to pay back their first TARP bailout.
At Yahoo Finance, Dan Gross sees a silver lining in the fact that these banks have at least swapped out of one government program that simply hands them cash for ones that encourage them to do something constructive with that cash.
Still, the fact that some banks refinanced their initial TARP investments by borrowing from other federal government programs undercuts the Treasury Department's claim that the government has made money from TARP, wrote Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and a former senior policy advisor to former Democratic Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, in a post at the Naked Capitalism blog:
Our banking system is still reliant on the government for support. Officials can claim that TARP made money, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is a way of avoiding a description of the actual policy framework.
Meanwhile, there is still about $16.7 billion in original CPP money that hasn't been paid back, the GAO report says. (The government has turned a slight profit on CPP so far because the dividend and interest payments from other banks have amounted to more than that $16.7 billion). And while the biggest banks have paid their money back, several smaller banks are having trouble making regularly scheduled payments to the government, the GAO report says.
The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog wrote:
As of Nov. 30, 158 had missed quarterly payments, a marked increase from eight in February 2009, GAO said. And the number of problem banks–those that demonstrated financial, operational or managerial weaknesses that threatened their continued financial viability–rose to 130 in December 2011 from 47 in December 2009 GAO said.
It may be unfair to quibble with the Treasury Department's claim that the government is making money on TARP. After all, the bailout was not meant to be a get-rich-quick scheme. It was meant to stop the financial sector from collapsing into a giant black hole that was going to suck the global economy inside of it.
But it is worth remembering that the banking sector is where it is today thanks to the good graces of American taxpayers, who are still on the hook if these banks can't pay back the money they've borrowed to stay afloat. And whether we're talking about small banks or big banks, it's still too early to say the banking sector is in the clear.
10-03-2012, 04:43 PM
soul controller
Quote:
Originally Posted by food for thought
I thought all US banks were required to pay back the money they borrowed during the bailouts
im not sure.. but on the foreclosure payouts...
hahah yeah out the 27 billion?
each home owner got about 2000$s each..
the rest of teh tax payer cash went back to the banks..
Bloomberg News is continuing with the thankless task of pushing forward with FOIA requests relative to the Fed’s lending programs, and once it eventually gets its troves of documents, having to slog through them to see what they reveal.
Bloomberg has a long article up on its site about its latest findings. And the bottom line is everybody close to the process lied like crazy. For instance:
It’s difficult to puzzle out what Bernanke thinks he is accomplishing with QE3. The level of bond buying, as various commentators have pointed out, is much lower than in the earlier QE programs. And pulling out bigger guns in the past was not terribly productive. As we wrote in April 2011 in a post titled “Mirabile Dictu! Economists Agree All the Fed Has Done is Goose Financial Markets!“:
QE is just helping the bankers/elite consolidate more, buy up anything of any value, while none of the cash that is pumped into the system filters down.. hence inflation will go higher,, due to the massive amounts of fiat currency being pumped into the system,, the doller/pound/euro will always depreciate.,, the more money thrown in at the top the harder for the normal folks..
while looking for something that i cant find.. i came across this
U.S. Gave Tens of Billions to Libor-Manipulating Banks ... Even AFTER Learning about the Manipulation
ok fuck all that shit i posted..lol
this is what i was looking for..
$26 billion dollar settlement reached between 49 states, government authorities, and the 5 biggest banks. But this $26 billion won't go too far in helping the millions of Americans that need it. But what is $26 billion to the banks? Is this even a punishment? Richard Eskow, senior fellow with Campaign For America's Future.
By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller.
Gretchen Morgenson is ringing alarm bells that a 50 state settlement on the foreclosure fraud issue is on deck, and is spelling out some of the details. There would be some principal write-downs, random cash payouts for those who were foreclosed, and money to buy off nonprofits in the states that work on housing issues (a classic Fannie/Freddie Dem friendly tactic Morgenson and Rosner exposed nicely in their book Reckless Endangerment). The settlement looks vague and stupid, and will probably be executed with the care and competence of HAMP. But let’s put that aside.
American leadership is reliable in one respect: it consistently undershoots my already low expectations.
Or maybe I have it backwards because I keep forgetting who the authorities are really serving, and it clearly isn’t you and me. As we will discuss below, the latest scam is that the banking regulators are finalizing a mortgage “breakdown” settlement, and they’ve evidently decided to let the industry off the hook for a mere $20 billion.
but it s easier for a small economy to post high rates of GDP than that of more advanced countries
although iceland is quite advances as it is so that kinda invalidates my argument
lol
10-04-2012, 10:24 AM
Shadow Demon
also for a country like US/UK that is so heavily reliant on financial services, effective regulation would mean job losses in these sectors (as has happened)
thus it adds another dimension and pain to the economy
but ultimately its necessary.
yall can credit Reagan and Thatcher for setting off this shit 40 years ago
10-04-2012, 10:43 AM
soul controller
yep Keynesian economics is flawed., you cant run capitalism with no capital!!
the system is run on fraud, from bottom to top, or top to bottom..
make free money, charge interest on it..
hence why none of the debt in the world will ever go away,, not enough paper cash on the planet to even cover half of the debt..
which is why austerity/QE is a fallacy.
as they print more money (but the interest of the printed money is never accounted for)
iceland learnt, print your own cash. money that belongs and is owned by the people..
10-04-2012, 05:25 PM
Shadow Demon
^i think your confusing keynesianism with neoliberalism ?
neoliberalism is minimal regulation and state intervention
keynesianism is better provided governments adhere to its original principle of spend when in recession cut back when times are good-which the UK didnt do.
what's the alternative? Neoliberalism is also trickle down economics except its worse and more instable.
at least the keynesian era had some form of state regulation until thatcher and reagan fucked it up
10-04-2012, 07:23 PM
soul controller
only one system makes any sence to me now..
anarchy....
for the people by the people.. fucking hate collins/oxford dictionary meaning of the word, basically to them it means lawless..
but thats cos the current faggot ass laws would be re written, made just and fair, where we would all be the same
10-05-2012, 01:42 PM
Shadow Demon
^i think the closest example of what you mean is Scandinavian countries, like Norway, Sweden,Denmark and Finland.
Low levels of income inequality (unlike uS/UK)
high welfare,
free uni
etc etc
10-05-2012, 02:04 PM
soul controller
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow Demon
^i think the closest example of what you mean is Scandinavian countries, like Norway, Sweden,Denmark and Finland.
Low levels of income inequality (unlike uS/UK)
high welfare,
free uni
etc etc
indeed, income equality is what defines a society, to me a civilized society shoulnt have a bigger than 25% income gap,. everyone should be out helping one another with the skills they have..
the only other form i like is TAOISM, but i dont know if that could be a system for society to live by :s
10-05-2012, 07:13 PM
Shadow Demon
if you want optimal form of government look at germany
low levels of public debt, decent welfare, good regulation, corp's, government and unions all consult on economic/development issues as well as providing excellent skills training
on top of that the Green Party is fairly powerful and so the nation has better green credentials that most
basically its reconciled the role between the market and the state
10-06-2012, 04:25 AM
cj wisty
Quote:
Originally Posted by soul controller
as they print more money (but the interest of the printed money is never accounted for)
iceland learnt, print your own cash. money that belongs and is owned by the people..
but do u not have 2 back up ur money with gold resources. germany tried printing lots of money in the 20s to pay for reperations to the allies after wold war 1 but this just made all their money worthless.
what do u mean by "but the interest of the printed money is never accounted for"
10-06-2012, 04:27 AM
cj wisty
i dont think anarchy would work. is that not getting rid of all class systems. u need some type of class system.
i think very light left wing capitalism works best.
10-06-2012, 09:19 PM
Shadow Demon
class isnt an issue in some countries because of the ease of upward mobility into bettter jobs versus other countries
but its ingrained into the mind of many brits
10-06-2012, 10:05 PM
TSA
As much as people knock the american system there's still something to be said about the upward mobility. People get mad because the 'top' have 'all the wealth' i suppose but the rest of us still have more than enough to live comfortably on and if we pursuit more it's just for fun and scorekeeping.
I agree that the German system is better though. UK/US's system creates a situation where power is so tightly congealed in the upper class due to the unhealthy amount of wealth a person can rack up that it stifles democracy. I believe capitalism is best when several medium to small sized businesses compete with each other, but when one starts getting so big and disproportionately influential it kills the rest and creates dependence so that when that one tanks it's a national crisis.
bigger businesses also make it harder for new business to start and thus wealth stays petrified in the upper class and everyone else is just allowed to 'survive'.
I think highly reglated capitalism is good, especially if it's a capitalism that favors the small and medium business' and limits the amount of wealth someone can attain in a creative way.
10-07-2012, 02:49 AM
soul controller
gold backed currency doesnt exist, thats an illusion, that they want you to believe in.. QE causes billions of debt based cash to flood the system, there is no where near the level of gold, anywhere on the planet..
gold / silver backed cash ended before the 70's, early 80's
now its just centralized banks, that print money out of nothing.. then sell it to govts with added interest..
Capitalism, cant work with out capitol.. There is no capitol.. lol
we do not live in a capitalist world, more like cartelism,oligarchy, corporatism, plutocracy..
in a FREE market the govts cant in and bail corporations..
they're can be NO to big to fail business's in a genuine democractic/capitalist state
he shows and prooves the daily fraud commited DAILY by corporate elite, while the leaders of the nations, enforce no regulations or laws..
in fact.. every time a major corporation does wrong.. rules and regulations are changed.. and the perpetrator says they made a mistake.. lol
banks can de stabilize nations, and nothing happens to them., a man can steal a loaf of bread to feed his family.. and gets 6 months in prison..
whose committing the bigger crimes?
some short clips of max
(max created some of the software/algorithms they use on wallstreet,, he knows all about high frequency trading.. scamming the system, what the banks do daily..one of the best whistle blowers of all time)
