Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:19 am Post subject: Oare House puppeteer behind the Iceland Banking Crisis?
Little known but it appeared on a Guardian forum is the fact that Kaputhing the bank that collapsed was taken over by Jardine Holdings previously based in Hong Kong, now based in Bermuda is one of the principal instigrators of globalisation in particular from the mid-1990's in attacking unions in docks around the world. It has clear British connections
How come none of this has appeared once again in the media?
So what is actually going on?
Is Brown using the excuse to not pay public sector salaries?
Quote:
My wife and I, Canadians age 73 and 68 years respectively, live in Ireland. She has osteoporosis, so a fall means broken bones, and Ireland has no treacherous snow and ice.
We had our life savings in Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander on the Isle of Man. We did not put it there because it was a tax haven, indeed we declared the account to the Irish Revenue service and declared the interest income from it, but because Kaputhing provided a good service and allowed us to bank and write cheques in the currencies of the countries in which our far flung family, children and grandchildren, live – France, Britain, Ireland, Canada – and to bank the occasional very small royalty cheque which I still sometimes receive from the various countries in which I once sold scripts as a television writer – principally Britain, Canada, USA. These often amount only to a few pounds or dollars, and Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander were almost unique in not charging to cash these foreign currency cheques. Other banks would often have charged more than the cheque was worth.
So Kaputhing was a Godsend to us. We have held accounts there for twenty years, since it was called Jardine Fleming and was owned by the upright and honest Dutch. Then it became Singer and Friedlander and then it was bought by Kaupthing. Well, we were pleased because we thought that if one nation might be more dedicated to hard work and straight dealing even than the Dutch it must surely be the solidly reliable Icelanders – sort of Nordic Canadians. How wrong we were. We did not suspect that in reality you had fewer morals than a bunch of Somali pirates or Nigerian criminals. Incidentally, while mainland UK savers with Kaupthing are protected to some extent, those in the Isle of Man branch have no real protection.
The head of Jardine Morgan Holdings Limited, Henry Keswick, is recognised as one of the "Lords of the English Manner". In fact Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that Keswick is playing a major role in the media-management of the globalisation of the world by the multinationals. A world in which anything goes, for example Keswick, the Jardine taipan, told the Hong Kong parliament that opium was no more evil than beer or wine; although when pushed he admitted that he would not like his own son to smoke it. As late as 1918, the drug"that old prop and stay of the colony's finances"--represented 46.5 percent of all Hong Kong's government revenues. It was 1945 before opium became illegal in Hong Kong."
There is also a Scottish and American connection....
Relationship with Jardine Matheson
Quote:
In 1970, Flemings entered into an investment banking joint venture with Hong Kong based Jardine Matheson, forming Jardine Fleming. The tie-up was prompted by the long-standing family links between the Flemings and the Keswick family of Scotland, who have run Jardine Matheson since its founding.
[edit] Flemings at the end of its days
In 1997, Robert Fleming Holdings had operations in 44 countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Americas and Africa. Its net assets as for the 1997 fiscal year were £841 million and its profit before tax for the year was £136.1 million. Its global asset management business managed £63 billion on behalf of institutional and private investors around the world. These results included Jardine Fleming, which in its own right had operations in 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, seats on 20 stock exchanges and some US$19.7 billion in funds under management. Jardine Fleming’s profit before tax for the year was US$41.4 million.[2] The firm’s significant transactions included the privatization of state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd. in 1994.
Through its history, the firm wore its Scottishness on its sleeve. In addition to being controlled by the Scottish Fleming family, there were other signs of its Scots heritage. A bagpipe player regularly greeted visitors at its London headquarters until 2000. In the 1990s, its main non-Fleming family backers were Scottish institutions such as Baillie Gifford and Stewart Ivory. The firm also owned the most extensive private collection of Scottish art in existence, removed to an art Foundation, The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, created to protect the art works and prevent any buyers of the failing bank from selling off the collection.
[edit] Scandal, crisis and restructuring
The Fleming name was tarnished by a scandal in 1996, when Jardine Fleming was ordered to pay $19 million to fund investors for alleged abusive and unsupervised securities allocation practices by asset management head Colin Armstrong. The 1997 Asian crisis severely hit both Robert Fleming and Jardine Fleming. Robert Fleming was forced to approve massive lay offs in late 1998. The firm restructured in 1999, buying the remaining 50% stake in Jardine Flemings in return for giving Jardine Matheson an 18% stake in Robert Flemings Holdings. However, despite these efforts, Flemings continued to see its investment banking and asset management market share decline as global investment banks like Morgan Stanley and Lazard moved into their markets.[3]
[edit] Sale to Chase
In April 2000, Robert Flemings Holdings was sold to Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:00 pm Post subject: Iceland crisis Henry Keswick and his private pyramid
Iceland crisis Henry Keswick and his private pyramid
Brilliant bit of digging CA.
He's the geezer on the right
You've pulled out a plumb.
Henry Keswick wiki entry
He is not popular with the locals where he lives very near esoteric Avebury in the Vale of Pewsey, part of my patch when I was a Wiltshire Sound reporter. Promised an old fashioned 'folly' and built this esoteric monstrosity.
Keswick, as he is known, has a £15m German built 'summer house' pristine but with a floor covered with dead flies which he uses only twice a year known variously as the 'Temple of Apollo' or the 'Millenium Pavillion'.
Here indeed is a weird sculpture of Apollo inside the 'Pavillion'! Keswick is desperately aspiring to become a peer according to the locals so he will be being led by the nose I imagine and prepared to sell his soul, like Mandelson, to get it. A dangerous man rightr now.
Henry Keswick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Henry Neville Lindley Keswick (born 29 September 1938 in Shanghai) is a Scottish businessman and heroin addict? He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Henry married to Tessa, Lady Reay, younger daughter of the late Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat in 1985. He lives on a large country estate in Oare, Wiltshire, England.
He is chairman of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd which he joined in 1961. He has been a director since 1967 and became Managing Director in 1970 followed in 1972 by chairman. He is director of a number of Group companies. He is part of the Keswick family business dynasty.
He is Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Association and a member of the Council of the National Trust. He was previously the Chairman of the National Portrait Gallery. Proprietor of the Spectator Magazine 1975-81.
Pictured: Icelandic bank boss' £10.5m London home - bought just months before collapse
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:31 PM on 15th October 2008
*
The boss of an Icelandic bank bought a home in West London for £10.5million just months before his bank collapsed, it was claimed today.
Kaupthing chairman Sigurdur Einarsson was said to have paid over £2.5million above the market value for the four-bedroom house in a deal financed by his bank.
Similar properties on the same street sold last year for £3,750,000 and £5,100,000. Einarsson's mansion was on the market for £8million for several weeks.
Home comforts: the house in west London bought by Sigurdur Einarsson for £10.5 million in a deal financed by his bank, Kaupthing
Home comforts: The house in West London bought by Sigurdur Einarsson, below, for £10.5million in a deal financed by his bank, Kaupthing
£10.5million home: Sigurdur Einarsson
The revelation comes ahead of meetings between council representatives and ministers to see what help can be given to local authorities hit by the Icelandic banking crisis which has put the savings of thousands of Britons at risk.
About 800 jobs are also in jeopardy at the UK division of the bank, Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander.
Some 116 councils and other public bodies have about £1billion invested in failed Icelandic banks.
Last week Kaupthing's assets were frozen and investors' stakes wiped out when it went into receivership.
The Treasury has been forced to use anti-terror measures in order to rescue its assets and stabilise the UK's own financial system.
Yesterday saw Iceland's stock market plunge a massive 76 per cent in the market's first day of trading since last Wednesday.
Despite trading remaining suspended in six banks, there were huge losses which will take the Icelandic economy even closer to collapse.
Iceland drew on Nordic help to get foreign currency on Tuesday and held talks with Russia over a possible loan to stave off a crisis that has left its economy near collapse.
More...
* ING claims business as usual in move to calm nerves of Iceland savers
* Icelandic stock market plunges a massive 76 per cent as the rest of the world enjoys huge gains
* Rival bidders threaten Sir Philip Green's plan to take control of the Icelandic-owned Baugur retail chain
Reykjavik's benchmark index dropped almost 80 percent nearly a week after trading was stopped to give the island's authorities time to try to ease the crisis that has overwhelmed its once flourishing financial sector.
Iceland, which has tapped the International Monetary Fund for financial aid and has been forced to abandon attempts to defend its falling currency, said it had used a swap facility on Tuesday to get 200 million euros (£155 million) each from the central banks of Norway and Denmark.
Last Thursday, Iceland's prime minister, Geir Haarde, said use of the swap lines would be "absolutely a last resort type of arrangement".
Without access to foreign currency, importers said they were increasingly being shunned by suppliers.
"They're increasingly being seen abroad as unreliable partners -- they have the money but cannot get foreign currency," Knutur Signarsson, managing director of Iceland's Wholesalers Association, told a newspaper.
Collapse: Icelandic bank Kaupthing
Collapse: Sigurdur Einarsson is chairman of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing
Central bank guidelines give priority to essential imports such as food, medicines and oil, in effect leaving importers of other goods starved of foreign currency.
Based on central bank figures, it can supply enough foreign currency to local firms to cover imports for just under nine months.
Iceland is also looking at funding from oil-producing Russia to replenish foreign exchange reserves and bail out its banks.
An Icelandic delegation, which did not include any ministers or the central bank chief, held talks with Russian officials.
Haarde told a news conference in Reykjavik, "The size of the Russian loan, if there is a loan, which is not definite, has not been decided."
"We look at this as a non-political deal, if there is to be a deal, which we don't know yet. I don't know of any particular political strings that the Russians would want to attach to this." He said the talks in Moscow had gone well.
Iceland initially mentioned a 4 billion euro (£3 billion) loan - around 1 per cent of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves.
Russian officials say no details have been agreed, although they are looking on the loan request favourably.
Some analysts have questioned Russia's motives on a possible deal and what price Moscow might extract from Iceland, a member of the NATO military alliance. Russia has criticised NATO expansion to its borders, seeing it as a security threat.
Iceland took control of the operations of its major banks Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir last week.
As Iceland looks abroad for help, some ministers have also raised the idea of European Union membership, long resisted by the island's fishing lobby, to safeguard the economy.
On Monday, an IMF official who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the fund discussed Iceland's official request for finance at the weekend but that no amount had been agreed.
The Icelandic government is working on an economic plan that it will present to the IMF on Tuesday or Wednesday, Icelandic daily Frettabladid reported on Tuesday, citing sources. An Icelandic government spokeswoman said she could not confirm that an official request had been made.
Haarde dismissed suggestions Iceland was now bankrupt.
"Our country hasn't gone bankrupt and the government is not in default, and will not go into default," Haarde told Channel Four news television.
Central Bank Governor David Oddsson has been criticised for not doing enough to stave off the crisis and that his communications had at times exacerbated problems.
"I have full confidence in him," Haarde said when asked whether Oddsson should go. "This is not the time to assess blame for what happened, this is the time to find solutions."
REYKJAVIK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Iceland has food stocks for about 3 to 5 weeks,
but needs quickly to restore a proper foreign exchange market so importers can get back to normal business and avoid shortages, importers said on Wednesday.
Since crisis broke out on the north Atlantic island of 300,000 people, involving the government taking over the top three banks, suppliers to Iceland have cut credit to importers. Some have also demanded pre-payment for goods.
Though the central bank has said it has foreign reserves for eight to nine months of food, importers said a cash injection from abroad was the only solution to avoid shortages.
They said Iceland imported about a half of its food products, but produced its own dairy products and meat.
"The government has to get some currency in to back up the crown and build up credibility again," said Oli Johnson of the OJNK food importer, one of Iceland's biggest.
"As soon as we can show we can pay without restrictions, things will open up again," Johson said. "Hopefully they plan to solve it in the next few days."
He said Iceland on average had stocks of about 3 to 4 weeks.
The problem for importers was uncertainty about whether they would get foreign exchange, which they now have to apply for under a rationing system begun by the central bank. Continued...
Iceland followed the prescriptions of a right-wing ideologue, and its economy paid a severe price.
Iceland is now essentially bankrupt after the government took over its three major banks to prevent them from failing. It owes more than $60 billion overseas, about six times the value of its annual economic output. As a professor at London School of Economics said, "No Western country in peacetime has crashed so quickly and so badly."
What on earth happened to get Iceland and its banking sector into such a state?
It turns out that Iceland, despite its coalition governments and Nordic social values, became a poster child for neoconservative economic policies inspired by Milton Friedman during the past decade. Friedman himself visited Iceland in 1984 and participated in what was described as a "lively television debate" with leading Socialists. This inspired a generation of young conservatives who came to power through the Independence Party in 1991 and have run its government through different coalitions since then. _________________ Simon - http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/
So how come a Tory mate of Cameron advised Labour and Tory councils to invest in Iceland when stories like this existed on the internet?
The hedge fund crowd are going for broke. Their aim alongside politicians is to take as much money as possible in the shortest possible time before it all goes to hell in a handcart.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Enron Gone Global: Hedge Fund Pirates Trying to Destroy Iceland for a Quick Buck
By Max Keiser, Huffington Post. Posted May 21, 2008.
People are referring to Iceland as the first possible 'offshore Northern Rock,' implying that a major run on the banking system is possible.
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The sup-prime fallout and global credit crunch is hitting hard in Iceland, as I've been keeping tabs on in this space. The latest news is that Björn Gudmundsson, an economist at Landsbanki, said the Bank of England might need to join the Nordic front to stop the crisis spreading. This would be on top of an emergency credit facility put in place this past week by Norway, Sweden and Denmark of 1.5 billion Euros to support the Icelandic Krona from an attack by hedge funds. These hedge funds are wielding what Warren Buffet calls 'Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction' (a.k.a. derivatives), who have targeted the country with short-selling 'bear raids' to try and drive the 300,000 people living in Iceland and their economy into bankruptcy for a quick buck.
The connection to Britain is that Icelanders have become big investors in Britain by borrowing billions on the Sterling market and then using the money to take over lots of British companies. Many of the shops one sees on Britain's 'high streets' are in fact owned by Icelandic investors.
In the global daisy chain that is the world financial markets we should be mindful that an attack on Iceland means an attack on Britain, who is already suffering a real estate crash and economic contraction similar to the one in 1990. (I remember getting calls from friends in London selling their 'rollies' (Rolls Royces) for $10,000, the equivalent, I suppose, of the famous photos of men selling apples in the street on Wall Street after the crash of 1929). And of course, memories still burn of Georoge Soros's 'bear raid' of the British Pound Sterling in 1993 when he made a quick 1 billion dollars and forced the Pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism -- an event that squashed support for the Tories and gave rise to Blair and New Labor.
The Telegraph in London reports that people are referring to Iceland as the first possible 'offshore Northern Rock,' implying that a major run on the banking system is possible. Gordon Brown, Britain's beleaguered Prime Minister seems utterly flummoxed and out of his depth since taking over from Tony Blair and his Chancellor of Exchequer Alistair Darling has lost all credibility. There does not appear to be any guidance coming out of No. 10 at all.
For Americans this may seem far away from their own financial concerns, especially now since the talk in the financial press in the U.S. is of a 'shallow' recession and we hear of a rebound on Wall Street and a 'bottoming' of the real estate collapse. However, since the globe's finances are interconnected in highly leveraged ways where the 'butterfly principle' of chaos theory is made manifest through the multi-hundred trillion derivative-o-sphere, one cannot forget that the U.S. dollar, a butterfly of a fiat currency with very little in the way of tangible assets supporting it, can get caught up in the global maelstrom in ways that Americans will find nasty.
I will continue to keep an eye on this Iceland story and possible do a follow-up film to the one I already made that was broadcast on Al Jazeera a couple of months ago.
Max Keiser has been involved with markets and finance for 25 years. He started his career as a stock broker on Wall Street after graduating from NYU. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (that operates via his patented Virtual Specialist technology).
Is todays volcano some sort of natural justice/revenge?
It does seem some Brits were involved in messing up Iceland's bank regulation system.
Heres an answer to a riddle... two days before the "volcano erupted" as the story goes......
How Iceland's banking flaws brought down the country's economy
• Damning 2,300-page report exposes failings of financial system
• Senior politicians, regulators and bankers all at fault
• Icesave collapse detailed, with UK regulator's involvement
• Baugur and Tchenguiz loans were part of web of cross-holdings
* Simon Bowers
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 April 2010 21.09 BST
* Article history
Protesters in Reykjavik burn furniture at a demonstration over the financial crisis
Protesters in Reykjavik burn furniture during a demonstration in front of parliament over the handling of the financial crisis. Photograph: Thorvaldur Kristmundsson/AP
Behind Iceland's superficially booming financial markets in the mid noughties lay a financial system shot through with corruption and regulatory negligence that led inexorably to a dramatic economic meltdown 18 months ago, according to a damning truth commission report.
The 2,300-page forensic investigation, presented to Iceland's parliament yesterday, reserves its deepest criticisms for the island's three largest banks – Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki – which failed in quick succession in October 2008. The long-delayed report, produced after interviews with about 300 key players, found these banks had effectively been captured by some of their powerful majority shareholders and that the true extent of their financial vulnerability had been deliberately masked.
Among the tycoons the report claimed were favourably treated by the banks they part-owned is British property expert Robert Tchenguiz. As well as having an indirect interest in Kaupthing shares, Tchenguiz, or businesses linked to him, had been granted loans with a value equivalent to 25% of Kaupthing's equity by early 2008. Further overdrafts were repeatedly agreed in subsequent months, many to fund margin calls from other banks.
"Rules about large risk exposures were not followed," the truth commission report found. "Judging by data the commission has requested from Kaupthing, it is hard to see that lending, to the extent that Tchenguiz companies received it during times of liquidity crisis, was decided with the banks' interests in mind."
The report also delivers unflinching attacks on Iceland's most senior politicians and civil servants, for their role in presiding over an out-of-control banking system. The most high-profile among them is David Oddsson, chairman of Iceland's central bank at the time of the crash, who shaped Iceland's economy as prime minister between 1991 and 2004, during which time he was the driving force behind a rapid privatisation of the banking sector.
The truth commission's report delivers formal findings of "mistakes or negligence" against Oddson, former prime minister Geir Haarde, former finance minister Árni Mathiesen and former minister of commerce Björgvin Sigurdsson. Two other former governors of Iceland's central bank are also named and shamed, as is the former head of the financial supervision authority (FME), Jónas Jónsson.
It is thought likely that some of these accusations will form a basis for Iceland's parliament to convene a long-dormant constitutional court with powers to punish misdemeanours in public office.
Responding to the damning analysis, prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said: "This important report will enable us to look forward by understanding what took place here in the months and years leading up to the banking collapse. Iceland needs closure in order to fully focus on and finish the reconstruction which lies ahead."
The report also includes a detailed account of desperate behind-the-scenes efforts by the UK Financial Services Authority in early 2008 to ensure sufficient protections were in place for hundreds of thousands of British retail savers with Icesave, an online bank account marketed by Landsbanki. Despite panic over Icesave from the UK regulator, at least one Icelandic central bank governor claimed to have been unaware until mid 2008 that deposits were being taken from the UK and used to support Landsbanki activities in Iceland. Landsbanki board minutes showed they believed the FSA was "looking after British interests and not merely following the rules".
A rush of UK deposits with Icesave had reached close to £5bn by the end of 2007, but in the following spring a string of media reports questioning the credibility of Iceland's claims to have in place a pre-funded deposit guarantee fund led to a £1bn UK depositor run in six weeks.
Behind the scenes, as early as July 2008, Oddson was arguing the Icelandic state had no legal requirement to underwrite deposit guarantees.
An official refusal to do so in October by an effectively bankrupt government led British chancellor Alistair Darling to step in and offer full guarantees for 229,000 savers in the UK. At the same time he placed Landsbanki, the dying bank behind Icesave, and Oddsson's central bank on an official Treasury list of "financially sanctioned regimes" alongside Burma, North Korea and al-Qaida.
The Treasury is still pressing Iceland to agree repayment terms to cover its depositor guarantee commitments after the last set of proposals was voted down in an Icelandic referendum.
The truth commission found the owners of all three banks had "abnormally easy access to loans from these banks, apparently in their capacity as owners". The largest exposure of all three banks was to their principle owners.
"This raises the question as to whether the lending was done at arm's length," explained Sigrídur Benediktsdóttir, one of three commissioners.
"The operations of the banks were in many ways characterised by their maximising the benefit of the majority shareholders, who held the reins within the banks, rather than by running reliable banks with the interests of all shareholders."
Among the apparently suspect lending decisions highlighted by the report were:
• Loans by Glitnir to investment company Baugur, dominated by investment in well-known British high street chains including House of Fraser, Hamleys, the frozen-food chain Iceland and the jewellers Mappin & Webb. Baugur was controlled by Jon Ásgeir Jóhannesson, who also had a considerable ownership interest in Glitnir;
• Kaupthing loans to Exista, the holding company which controlled 23% of the banks shares, and to connected companies, such as businesses linked to Tchenguiz, a shareholder in Exista.
• Landsbanki loans to the business empire of Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, the Icelandic billionaire who lives in Notting Hill, in London. Together with his father Björgólfur Gudmundsson, the former owner and chairman of West Ham football club, Björgólfsson was Landsbanki's largest shareholder. At the same time, the value of loans to his business interest was equivalent to almost 30% of equity.
The truth commission report, produced by a committee chaired by Icelandic supreme court judge Páll Hreinsson, found that much of Iceland's apparent wealth in recent years had been an intricately constructed mirage, a web of cross-holdings and compromised lending decisions. The regulatory smokescreen thrown up by the three banks and their major owners masked the fact that "weak equity" accounted for 70% of the banks' reported core capital and should be discounted, the report found.
Key regulatory failures identified by the report included:
• An understaffed and inexperienced financial regulator (FME) that "did not enforce the legal provisions which were at its disposal even when they saw laws being broken.".
• A central bank that failed to keep sufficient foreign currency reserves. Short term foreign currency liabilities were 16 times bank reserves by the end while deposits from overseas spiralled to eight times bank reserves.
• A deposit guarantee fund that was so underfunded that a single large bank failure could have bankrupted the state.
bjorgolfur-thor-little“I, the undersigned Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson, offer my apologies to all Icelanders for my part in the property and debt bubble that led to the collapse of the Icelandic banking system. I apologise to you all for complacency in the face of the red flags that were going up all around. I apologise for having not followed my instincts when I became aware of the risks. I apologies to you all.”
These are the words of Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson – former largest owner of Landsbanki and owner and chairman of Straumur and former 249th richest man on Earth, according to Forbes. In 2009 his fortune had plummeted to a mere billion dollars and its status today is not public knowledge.
Bjorgolfsson wrote these words in a letter to the Frettabladid newspaper. He said he cannot help but be filled with guilt when he sees the effects of the crash but also believes he did not break any specific laws. He is now working to pay off his debts.
“It is clear that although much of my property is going to creditors, I will nonetheless work on their behalf for many years, until such time as I have fully settled them. I am committed to complete these tasks with honour,” Bjorgolfsson wrote.
Bjorgolfur did not issue his apology now by coincidence. He decided previously not to make any statements until the Althingi investigation committee had completed its work.
In analysing the financial crash from his own vantage point, Bjorgolfsson says that no one man was capable of changing the developing situation once the operating environment of the banks took a turn for the worse. He said on the other hand that he had been one of those in a position to have had some influence on the way things were headed.
“The current situation says everything about how I did my job. I apologise to all Icelanders for not having done better.” These were his last words in the letter.
@BornPatriot - You do what you can because; 1. you have to and 2. because it's the best you can figure out how to do; not to mention 3. this method has worked in the past.
bstill3 13 hours ago
The same goes for Egypt, the IMF banker Mafia criminals can't wait to get their hooks in those people.
UU361 19 hours ago
@UU361 - They already have their hooks in those people - food shortages, rising prices. Their goal; world revolution. What's that? They want to take down all civilized governments.
bstill3 13 hours ago
@charronfamilyconnect - No, they never went on the Euro. They still use their own sovereign money, the Icelandic Krona. Things are getting better economically because I am in personal touch with many people in Iceland still.
bstill3 20 hours ago
Backing the Punt with anything is a big mistake. Make the value of Ireland's money up to the elected representatives of the people. If they print too much, it's inflation. If too little, it's deflation. But at least, it is the people's representatives deciding for Ireland.
bstill3 1 day ago 2
celand’s special prosecutor into the banking crisis has confirmed that raids have taken place today and that arrests have been made. The Central Bank of Iceland is among the institutions under investigation.
Special Prosecutor, Olafur Thor Hauksson told Visir.is that house searches are taking place in at least three places today as part of investigations into the central bank, MP Bank and Straumur Bank.
Stefan Johann Stefansson at the central bank confirmed that agents were in the building conducting searches; and it has also been confirmed that searches are underway at MP Bank and ALMC (formerly Straumur).
An ALMC spokesman said that the premises are indeed being searched and that the bank’s staff members are doing their best to help.
In other news, four people have so far been arrested today in connection with the special prosecutor’s investigation into Landsbanki.
One of the arrested parties is Jon Thorsteinn Oddleifsson, former Landsbanki treasury boss; and it is not yet known who the other three are.
According to Visir.is sources, the arrests concern a brand new section of the wider case against the bank and are not directly connected to searches and arrests made last week.
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