She was just doing her job. Just following orders. If people are told to do bad things, you can’t blame them when they do those things. It’s not their fault. And no-one is to blame if they’re all just following orders. Thank God for hierarchy, otherwise people would have to take responsibility for their actions…

http://sedlabanki.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=7592

Is he free to talk or not is questionable but he is definetly free to express his academic views about the collapse of Icelandic banking system.

As having worked for Landsbanki at the time I remember all too well foreign(!!) accounting specialists telling that Landsbanki quarterly report was just fine. CB governor seconds that:

“…Did the Icelandic banks face a solvency problem? Not if we look at what used to be the traditional metrics before the crisis, cf. the
displayed table… Compared to peers, their capital and leverage ratios were not out of line. Neither do the underlying liquidity problems glare at us through these metrics. But that might say more about the metrics than the reality. Add to this the fact that, around a month before the collapse, the FME issued statements about how well the banks performed on a range of stress tests. However, these stress tests were flawed in the sense that they did not include liquidity. Furthermore, they tested one institution at a time and did therefore not take into account the interconnectedness and contagion elements that proved so important during the collapse.”

See it? Experts believed the bank is ok. Some people were ringing alarm bells but please note it is extremely difficult to proof a point using new, out-of-the box thinking techniques. Do not expect some marketing girl to understand what is going in the Icelandic banking sector as a whole.

I am pretty sure the answer why icelandic banks have failed will never be answered just like there is no answer what caused the Great Depression. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke managed to make an academic career on the topic but please be sure his views on how to prevent the next Great Depression are not unquestionable.

…My sympathy is more with the “mob”, which got to face the consequences of this Ponzi Scheme, rather than with its enablers.

Aren’t the candidates for parliament chosen by the parties rather than individually elected by general vote? If so, choosing this candidate is a statement of the IP to deny their responsibility.

She got voted in because she is a member of the Independence Party, which unbelievably still holds vast support among the Icelandic electorate. Landsbanki was an IP stronghold – in fact they sold it to their personal friends on the condition that IP members would hold key positions there. It was subsequently considered an incubator for young up-and-coming IP party members.

Who is the judge here to decide, that this person had nothing to do with collapse and mismanagement, while actively working to promote Icesave? Is this you? Hubris?

This is apparently not about being guilty or not guilty in a legal sense but about being biased in a decision making process, which is affecting this “petty mob”.

My sympathy is more with the “mob”, which got

So that’ll mean then that 300 000 people won’t be made to suffer, only the 30 or so individuals that are now living it up in the Caymans.