In the Wake of Economic Collapse. Iceland’s Election

In the Wake of Economic Collapse. Iceland’s Election: It’s not about Left and Right by Prof. Michael Hudson

Global Research, April 29, 2009

Everyone is against the oligarchy’s insiders who ran up the debts. That is why their major sponsor, the Independence Party, lost one-third of its electoral support (down to just 20 percent from its usual 33-35 percent), the lowest percentage of votes and seats in the parliament (Althing) in the 80 years since it was founded in 1930. The days of the kleptocracy are over – and there is scarcely more sympathy for the foreign lenders and savers who were the enablers of these insiders. But voters are wary of the financial stance England and the rest of Europe have taken against Iceland, and of arrangements with the International Monetary Fund. Former Independence Prime Minister (and later head of the central bank) David Oddsson is adamant that Iceland’s government and people not take responsibility for these bad debts, and shares the view I found to be unanimous among Icelanders: These crooks betrayed the country. The myth of deregulated “free” enterprise has been broken, and privatization is seen to have been a euphemism for kleptocracy (more)