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Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

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Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#71

Post by ep103 »

api wrote: post #55
deepnet wrote: post #16

Exactly, the problem has got worse. Banks are larger and more centralised, the offenders unpunished know they can act with impunity, legislation is unchanged. Banking/ finance types now know that if they are losing money they must simply lose big enough to trigger more bailouts and the taxpayer pays. This is despotic anti-capitalism: they keep the winnings and losses are generational debt on which they again profit.…

Funny that GWB got away with such a blatant bit of Keynesianism. A Democrat would be crucified. This is actually the pretty well known "only Nixon could go to China" effect.

Not sure he actually did though, he gave huge sums of money to the upper class. We'd need to see a report that actually said more went to the middle / lower than the upper, and somehow I very much doubt that occurred. Though, of course, that also explains how he got away with it.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#72

Post by ktRolster »

ivoras wrote: post #5

Here's a more direct post about various Iceland-related myths: https://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-o...

Here's a quote from that article:

Icelandic MP’s received a lot of no-strings-attached free money from the banks and the key players in the banking bubble and ensuing collapse are not the same as the people who are being convicted for fraud or insider trading.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#73

Post by ajlburke »

ktRolster wrote: post #64
illumin8 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can really be traced back to the repeal of Glass Steagal. After the great depression in the 30s, congress passed the Glass Steagal act, which put a firewall between investment banks and commercial banks. In other words, Wall Street investment banks could no longer gamble with customer deposits. This seems like common sense, and all of the financial problems actually occurred after Glass Steagal was repealed in t…

>This can really be traced back to the repeal of Glass Steagal. The evidence against this hypothesis is that Canada did not have Glass Steagal (or legislation similar to it), and yet they were not harmed by the financial crisis nearly as much. The banks were smart enough to not invest so deeply in mortgage backed securities.

Canadian banks have generally been much more regulated than US ones. Through the 90s and early 2000s they constantly complained about too much government regulation getting in the way of their profits etc. - they seem to have shut up about that since 2008.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#74

Post by Mikeb85 »

tosseraccount wrote: post #42
deepnet wrote: post #16

Exactly, the problem has got worse. Banks are larger and more centralised, the offenders unpunished know they can act with impunity, legislation is unchanged. Banking/ finance types now know that if they are losing money they must simply lose big enough to trigger more bailouts and the taxpayer pays. This is despotic anti-capitalism: they keep the winnings and losses are generational debt on which they again profit.…

"Austerity stagnates an economy". How did overspending work out for Greece? [ edit: I'd be glad to discuss substance. The admittedly rhetorical question stands. What is the evidence on overspending and growth? ]

Greece's debt was sustainable until the financial crisis.

However, when they joined the EU, many of their indigenous industries weren't competitive with other nations', so they 'specialized' in tourism. This brought in lots of income, but after the financial crisis, the tourists dried up, leaving them with a massive deficit. And of course, their debt ratio went up because of the contraction in revenues.

This is why Greece feels betrayed - they were spending more or less on par with other European nations prior to the financial crisis, but they were basically screwed by the cabal of European politicians and banks, who imposed absurd, punitive measures (which shrank the economy) in exchange for a 'bailout' (which was essentially more debt, on unfavourable terms).

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#75

Post by toomuchtodo »

hownottowrite wrote: post #68
toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer we flog them in public? Prison accommodations need not be barbaric to punish.

Indeed. http://icelandreview.com/news/2015/11/10/riding-lessons-impr...

I agree thats a bit over the top.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#76

Post by ageofwant »

kybernetikos wrote: post #17
vmateixeira wrote: post #15

They're allowed to browse the Internet and go to the Gym? Sounds better than most hotels I've been.

Are you saying that life in a prison should be worse than living in a budget hotel? Why?

Yes. Because prisons are not "correctional facilities" they are instruments of punishment, yielded by the state in the same way other compliance enforcing institutions are. All authority in human societies are fundamentally based on violence, or the threat of it.

Now if prisons were in fact "correctional facilities" with the resources skills and programs required to train inmates how to function in a modern civil society the answer would be "maybe".

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#77

Post by deepnet »

tosseraccount wrote: post #42
deepnet wrote: post #16

Exactly, the problem has got worse. Banks are larger and more centralised, the offenders unpunished know they can act with impunity, legislation is unchanged. Banking/ finance types now know that if they are losing money they must simply lose big enough to trigger more bailouts and the taxpayer pays. This is despotic anti-capitalism: they keep the winnings and losses are generational debt on which they again profit.…

"Austerity stagnates an economy". How did overspending work out for Greece? [ edit: I'd be glad to discuss substance. The admittedly rhetorical question stands. What is the evidence on overspending and growth? ]

Sensible spending on jobs and the economy has always worked.

Austerity is underspending not thrift.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#78

Post by ktRolster »

kybernetikos wrote: post #17
vmateixeira wrote: post #15

They're allowed to browse the Internet and go to the Gym? Sounds better than most hotels I've been.

Are you saying that life in a prison should be worse than living in a budget hotel? Why?

Do you think putting them in that kind of prison will help rehabilitate them into society, as a healthy, contributing system?

Do you think it will prevent them from committing that crime again?

Do you think that prison will scare other bankers from making the same 'mistake?'

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#79

Post by tosseraccount »

thedataslinger wrote: post #54
tosseraccount wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Austerity stagnates an economy". How did overspending work out for Greece? [ edit: I'd be glad to discuss substance. The admittedly rhetorical question stands. What is the evidence on overspending and growth? ]

Put simply: it is fraudulent when a creditor uses lies or deception. JP Morgan deceived the Greek people by masking a massive loan to the Greek government as a "currency swap", seemingly to avoid the financial regulators within the EU. See here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.htm...

"Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere."

Sounds like the Greek government was culpable.

Not blaming the culture of corruption in Greece and not pointing out that the Greek overspending was the root of the problem is disingenuous.

Re: Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

#80

Post by vette982 »

Bringing white-collar criminal cases may be easier in Iceland because courts don’t use juries. Rather, they employ neutral experts to help judges understand the intricacies of finance.

I believe Iceland is in the minority among developed nations that don't use juries, but I think this is a major strength in their court system.

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