Iceland: We Will Never Forgive Gordon Brown

• Guest 696

  • Registered: 31 Mar 2010
  • Posts: 8,115
  24 January 2013     01:55211737
  #1       report
  "The president of Iceland tells Sky News that his nation will never forgive Gordon Brown after it was hit with financial sanctions."
  
  As we know, Labour sold off Britain's gold reserves for scrap prices, outsourced most of our industrial production to other countries and consigned us to massive unemployment, a tremendous Public Debt and gave us a bank crash to boot.
  Gordon Brown was in the midst of it all.
  
  But Iceland was also hit by the bank crash with the collapse of Icelandic bank Icesave.
  So how did Gordon Brown react?
  
  Iceland's president Mr Grimsson told Sky News: "The Gordon Brown government decided, to its eternal shame, to put the Icelandic government on a list of terrorist states and terrorist phenomena. We were there together with al Qaeda and the Taliban on that list."
  
  What a disgrace!
  
  Mr. Grimsson adds:
  "We have not forgotten that in Iceland."
  And:
  "Gordon Brown will be long remembered in my country for centuries to come, long after he has been completely forgotten in Britain."
  
  How on Earth did the Labour government reckon that Iceland's economy, which is very limited compared to ours, could suddenly repay all outstanding money owed to the creditors of the Icelandic bank?
  Was the Labour government trying to force Iceland to accept a loan from the EU in return for forced membership?
  
  Mr Grimsson told Sky News that the estate of the bank has now "managed to recover enough assets to 'pay back to those who have deposits and the British authorities everything which can be reasonably required' ".
  
  Sky News also reports:
  "The president also signalled his country may soon abandon its plans to join the European Union."
  
  http://news.sky.com/story/1041936/icelands-leader-slams-gordon-brown-over-crisis
  Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
  Rule Britannia!
  Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ
• Guest 653

  • Registered: 13 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 10,540
  24 January 2013     05:22211738
  #2       report
  Thanks Alexander - trouble is that in general, people have short memories and most if not all Labour supporters, are in denial.
  
  
  
  Roger
• Brian Dixon

  • Location: Dover
  • Registered: 23 Sep 2008
  • Posts: 23,940
  24 January 2013     06:24211741
  #3       report
  roger,i deny nothing,but i will never forgive maggie thatcher for selling the famley silver and closeing the pits.talk about double standerds.
• Guest 710

  • Registered: 28 Feb 2011
  • Posts: 6,950
  24 January 2013     08:23211744
  #4       report
  "everything which can be reasonably required"
  
  Did he give any figures, as in 'cents on the dollar'?
  
  Instead of all the politicking, it's the numbers that count.
  Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
• Guest 649

  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 14,118
  24 January 2013     08:31211745
  #5       report
  It was the reds that got rid of the farmley Gold and we are still paying back for that now.If they had not done that we might not be where we are today.
• Guest 655

  • Registered: 13 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 10,247
  24 January 2013     08:34211746
  #6       report
  One point I should pick you up on Alexander.
  
  You give governments too much 'credit' and assign to much power to them by claiming the Labour 'outsourced most of our industrial production to other countries'.
  
  Governments do not determine industrial production and do not outsource it, we are not a Soviet style command economy of that kind. This is a matter for businesses and the markets.
  
  To be fair you could say that the UK government undermined UK competitiveness by adopting EU directives with all their red tape and 'gold plating them' while imposing high taxes and in so doing drove business and production overseas.
• Guest 710

  • Registered: 28 Feb 2011
  • Posts: 6,950
  24 January 2013     09:25211750
  #7       report
  To be fair one could say that, although we are unquestionably "each and all in this together" a great deal is lost in translation. It is the British way to see profit in opposing, while at the same time utilising the rhetoric of that which is opposed, and many of the traits proposed as a benefit for the many are turned into benefits for the few.
  So that the free movement of labour is utilised only to bring wages down, and the benefits of financial freedoms become syphons to abstract cash from out of any given economy while at the self same time expecting profits from the home market.
  It is not "imposing high taxes and in so doing drove business and production overseas", so much as short-term business interests seeing nothing untoward in driving a workforce to regress to the lowest level.
  It is a pity that self-interest provides a steady stream of chatter from those seemingly incapable of holding more than one thing in their minds at a time, they and their own interests are ever their favourite subject of discussion.
  The Deficit is being reduced, but there is little said about growth.
  It ill behoves the Octopus or even the Millipede to sever limb after limb with the expectation that the future will come to it, and yet with our faltering reliance on financial services alone to carry the candle (and call it a torch) to light our way into the future, all that we are expected to rely upon is making more and more money from money we do not have.
  
  British business is not driven overseas, it seeks to reconstruct a coolie-economy over here, and be thanked for it.
  Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
• Guest 698

  • Registered: 28 May 2010
  • Posts: 8,664
  24 January 2013     09:39211754
  #8       report
  Mr Grimsson speaks to his domestic audience with a view to his re-election campaign in three years time. All Brown did was to freeze Icelandic assets in the UK in order to have first claim on them to repay money foolishly deposited in Icelandic banks by British public sector bodies. Among the stupidest of those was KCC.
  
  One of the few times Brown actually took the advice of his Treasury mandarins and did the right thing.
  I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
• howard mcsweeney1

  • Location: Dover
  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 62,352
  24 January 2013     09:53211760
  #9       report
  from what i remember at the time kcc were among those considered unlucky as there was no prior warning of problems in iceland.
• Guest 698

  • Registered: 28 May 2010
  • Posts: 8,664
  24 January 2013     10:09211765
  #10       report
  Our Treasury credit analysts were asleep at the wheel. Icelandic banks had gradually built up their foreign liabilities up to 10x the country's GNP. An accident waiting to happen, caused by almost total lack of proper bank regulation in Iceland, and greed in our local authority treasuries, goaded on by the fairyland interest rates on offer.
  
  You would have thought councils would have learned a lesson from BCCI nearly 20 years prior- but obviously not.
  I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
• Guest 696

  • Registered: 31 Mar 2010
  • Posts: 8,115
  24 January 2013     12:29211793
  #11       report
  Many of the former Icelandic bankers were removed, and Iceland's population overwhelmingly agreed to repay the outstanding credits to offshore investors over a long period, by detracting the money from their own savings and budget.
  
  They went about it with dignity and self-sacrifice. The financial effects will be felt in Iceland for a long time to come.
  
  The difference is, Iceland does not run their economy like Gordon Brown and Labour ran ours, which was nothing less than a ponzi scheme. So they refused to be bullied by Brown into accepting some sort of bailout which would have inflicted austerity and ruin on their country.
  Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
  Rule Britannia!
  Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ