Comments on: Mea non culpa

By: Distributed Economics » Exploits: The curious case of the Icelandic Money Supply 2003 – 2009

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:38:42 +0000

[...] even with a report that goes into a fair amount of detail on the extraordinarily contrived web of lending and borrowing between a small circle of Icelandic businessmen, the main Icelandic banks, and their overseas [...]

By: Mike Richards

Mike Richards — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:08:30 +0000

Hi Alda,

With a new eruption underway the only logical explanation is that the Old Gods are angry with modern Icelanders. I suggest you throw a banker into the crater – it might not help, but it can’t do any harm now can it?

By: snowball

snowball — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:56:12 +0000

interesting to see a name like alisher usmanov among the top borrowers of kb.

„Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist“ a quote from the former british embassador to uzbekistan about alisher usmanov

By: Virgile

Virgile — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:16:46 +0000

Love the ” When all else fails, blame a foreigner.”. We should create a price for the most insidiously racist comment of the year. Valgerður is definitively a winner !

By: Joerg

Joerg — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:15:57 +0000

You don’t seem to be able to pin a fraudster down in Iceland, even if he or she has been caught red-handed. There seems to prevail a general attitude of irresponsibility, socialising the blame, deflecting it to foreigners or just plainly accusing the investigator of partisanship. I suppose, it’s still a long way to go until people internalise that their actions have consequences for themselves. Hopefully, this report provides a beginning for this process.

By: Maja

Maja — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:39:56 +0000

Wow, but it’s not surprising really. Isn’t it the number one rule in politics to always find someone else to blame. There really is a sore lack of Taking responsibility for your own actions in all the world today.

By: rod

rod — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:33:27 +0000

It is clear that the original privatisation was seriously flawed and if this person had any self-respect she would admit it.

However, even if the there had been a wide ownership base at the outset, it might have happened that the wide boys would have ended up in control anyway by buying up small packets of shares and creating large holdings. That is the method by which the Russian oligarchs got where are today.

By: Easy

Easy — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:21:13 +0000

And now what?? are we just so very happy to officially know that they screwed us?

By: Einar Karl Friðriksson

Einar Karl Friðriksson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:45:54 +0000

The ex-minister left me speechless. She comes as close as any politican to pretty much admitting that the “privatization” was a fraud, a political hi-jacking of state-owned banks. And we thought those kind of things only happened in Russia…

By: sigga

sigga — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:39:26 +0000

Given her comments today am wondering whether the consultancy firm if I recall right – HSBC will be putting in a liable claim in the UK. Loved the way that she side shuffled the fact that she did not read the reports from the consultants about being able to “massage” the information about the potential buyer to suit the requirements. Or was it because she doesn’t read English sufficiently well….