Did Iceland Run a Giant Ponzi Scheme to Scam British Savers?

No they did Not!

This was the work of Goldman Sachs!

Ice save had its money invested on wall street in the mortgage backed derivatives.

Goldman crashed them on purpose and made massive profits taking out Ice Save.

And many others around the Globe.

All the money of those savers is in Goldman Sachs account not in Iceland.

The only solution is the issuance of debt free money, to ensure the exchange of work and goods. This is what Lincoln did 145+ years ago, drawing the following fourious commentary from the London Times (telling basicly a secret, how to break away from the debt slavery scam):

"If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."

http://www.trosch.org/law/fed-paper-money.html

You write "There was nothing and I mean NOTHING to imply that Icelandic bank savings accounts carried ANY MORE RISKs than ANY other Savings Account in the UK [...]". This is complete rubbish. Even the popular financial press in the UK (specfically, "Money Week") ran several pieces that explicitly stated that Icelandic banks were extremely risky, months before the meltdown. I considered opening an account with these banks, and decided against it precisely because of such well-publicised considerations.

Icelandic banks were extremely risky As WAS NORTHERN ROCK A YEAR BEFORE !

BUT !!!

AND ITS A BIG BUT !!!

THE SAVERS WERE NOT AT RISK !!! THE SHAREHOLDERS WERE !!!

You forget that at NO POINT in ANY PRESS was Iceland defaulting on its AGREEMENT to cover the first 20,000 euros until the 7th of octobe 08

The Risk was Northern Rock style inconvenience, NOT risk of ZERO return on deposits!

if you read my article above, you will see I even said this on the 2nd of August 2008 with regards the risks of opening an Icesave account.

The privately owned Icelandic bank Landsbanki accepted deposits from British and Dutch savers into the so called Icesave accounts at high interest rates. As Landsbanki operated as a branch and not a subsidiary the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund guaranteed the deposits. The Fund was set up in accordance with the EU directives. The Icelandic legislation, modeled after the directives can be found here: "http://evropa.utanrikisraduneyti.is/media/esb_svor/17%20-%20Economic%20and%20Monetary%20Policy/Annex%2017-13%20K%20Act%20on%20Compensation%20Scheme.pdf". It is stated in it that "the total assets of the Deposit Department of the Fund shall amount to a minimum of 1% of the average amount of guaranteed deposits in commercial banks and savings banks during the preceding year". So the Fund didn't really have a lot of money. There is no mention of the Icelandic State being further obliged to guarantee deposits.

The Icelandic public didn't benefit from these deposits. Some Icelanders borrowed extensively to finance their expensive lifestyle, and maybe the loans were partly financed by these deposits. But those who borrowed still owe.

When the British and the Dutch reimbursed savers for their deposits, they acquired their claims on the Landsbanki bankrupt estate. The Emergency Act passed by Althingi in October 2008 dictates that depositor's claims are priority claims, so the British and the Dutch governments will receive payments for most of what they claim, no matter what.

This is what Icesave stated to its customers / prospective customers before October 2008 -

Deposits made with Icesave are protected under the Icelandic Deposit Guarantees and Investor-Compensation Scheme (details of this scheme may be obtained from http://web.archive.org/web/20070124233114/http://www.landsbanki.com/legislation). Payments under this scheme are limited to the first €20,887 (or the sterling equivalent) of your total deposits held with us.

You have further protection from the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (http://web.archive.org/web/20070124233114/http://www.fscs.org.uk/). Payments under this scheme are limited to 100% of the first £2000 of all your deposits with us, plus 90% of the next £33,000 of your total deposits with us, less any payments made under the Icelandic scheme. This means that the maximum claim amount as at June 2006 is £31,700.

As is usual with scammers, they can hide a way documents in the dark recesses under obscure headings to conjure out of thin air when they choose to, whilst in the meantime have been busy lieing to prospective depositors on the actual protection.

The government of Iceland is all for paying back the money; it the people of Iceland that refuse to pay back what the bankers stole.

Maybe if the bankers were rendered penniless and their sorry backsides tossed in prison the people of Iceland would rethink their obligation to repay the depositors.

But as is stand now, the only people that are going to pay are average citizens and I applaud them for saying HELL NO!

It is a common misunderstanding that Iceland is refusing to pay the deposit guarantee. This is not true. Previous to the law currently being discussed all over the world, the Icelandic parliament had already, this summer, passed a law to pay the guarantee and the Icelandic president had already signed that law.

However, the British and the Dutch governments were not satisfied with that law because there were safeguards in there to prevent the country from becoming bankrupt. So the British and Dutch governments essentially acted as mafia loan sharks and put a gun the collective heads of the Icelandic population and dictated loan terms that the Icelanders had to accept or else go bankrupt right away.

Many Icelanders feel that it is cleaner to go bankrupt right away than make their children go bankrupt later.

I think most Icelanders are ready to take a fair share of the responsibility and pay a fair share of the money lost by the depositors. I am personally of that opinion. We should, however, not forget the facts of the matter:

1) The banks were private corporations, not owned, backed or insured by the Icelandic government.

2) An insurance fund, similar to the US FDIC was set up, and similar to the FDIC, funded collectively by the banks, all in accordance with EU directives.

3) Such an insurance fund can never handle a systemic failure of the whole banking system, and, of course, it didn't. Such a fund relies on the remaining banks for funding and when there are no remaining banks there is no such funding. It is commonly acknowledged that such funds are not intended to be able to handle such systemic banking system failures.

4) The legal basis for making the Icelandic tax payer liable for these private losses is highly questionable and not settled, to say the least. In fact such a conclusion would in my mind lead to a very high degree of moral hazard for the whole of international banking. Such a conclusion could also be a catastrophe for countries with large banking systems, such as the UK or the US.

The world financial system is in deep trouble. We need to be very careful what principles we use to solve our problems.

Snorri Agnarsson

Reykjavík, Iceland

As a British taxpayer I clearly want the monies repaid on the best terms for us, after all we are in a complete mess financially ourselves.

However, I have every sympathy for the people of Iceland who are suffering, the majority of whom don't deserve being financially pillaged. I do accept that their standard of living accelerated artifically the last years due to the wealth effect of what was broadly a hedge fund state.

Lets not forget, as British citizens, there are many similarities with the Icelandic predicament with a wealth trickle down from shuffling paper.

So, I hope we get "our" money back, but fear we are simply witnessing our own future where naturally we will expect to be treated more fairly than the Icelandics, for the greed of the few (and the lack of intelligence of the many). Politicians are among the elite who sit comfortably in either of these buckets.

Crippled by private and now sovereign debt, the empire crumbles and wealth will leave this island too. In the capitalist system man exploits man, in the socialist system it is the other way around .... and that is the real tragedy. Lest we forget the Treaty of Versailles.

I have not followed the Iceland affair closely as I never invested with them but listening to interveiws with the Icelandic president I have not heard him say that the Icelanders are not on the hook for this money but that they simply can't afford to pay it.

This is in fact the same argument that our own government has used against Equitable Life investors where they have admitted liability for failing to supervise the company but refuse to pay compensation to all the investors who lost their savings as a result because of the cost.

Now that they have refused to pay our money back I doubt they will be allowed to join the EU.

They're going to be left out in the cold.

And it's mighty cold where they are.

Iceland is willing to pay back the amount of money that was used to indemnify the Brit citizens... Every Brit citizen has been made whole for their losses.... Iceland is not agreeing to the ridiculous fees that are being included in their bill to repay......... I don't know when the idea of getting rich (or richer) off people in need became acceptable... I guess the same time getting rich off sick people became the right thing to do......

Your story is misguided.......