{"id":13784,"date":"2015-10-24T18:54:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T23:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13784"},"modified":"2015-10-24T18:54:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T23:54:32","slug":"icelands-bankers-face-74-years-in-prison-while-us-banks-profit-after-your-bailout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13784","title":{"rendered":"Iceland\u2019s Bankers Face 74 Years in Prison While US Banks Profit After Your Bailout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iceland\u2019s Bankers Face 74 Years in Prison While US Banks Profit After Your Bailout<\/a><\/h3>\n

You could ice skate in Hell sooner than see the United States follow in Iceland\u2019s footsteps with this move: the 26th banker was just sentenced to prison for a combined 74 years between them \u2014 each of them jailed for their roles in the 2008 economic collapse.<\/p>\n

Five top bankers from Iceland\u2019s two largest banks \u2014\u00a0Landsbankinn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Kaup\u00feing<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 were found guilty of embezzlement, market manipulation, and breach of fiduciary duties. Though the country\u2019s maximum penalty for financial crimes currently stands at six years, the Supreme Court is currently\u00a0hearing arguments<\/a>\u00a0to extend the limit. Most of those convicted have so far been sentenced to between two and five years.<\/p>\n

Do those sentences sound light to you? Perhaps. Until you consider the curious method of punishment the U.S. employed for its thieving bankers.<\/p>\n

While Iceland allowed its government to take total financial control when the 2008 crisis took hold, American bankers \u2014 in likely the only\u00a0bail<\/del>\u00a0handout given to criminals of mass destruction \u2014 received $700 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP<\/a>) funds.<\/p>\n

Thank you,\u00a0Congress<\/del>\u00a0American taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Iceland certainly didn\u2019t make it through the crisis unscathed. It repaid\u00a0the IMF (the final\u00a0$332 million owed was paid in full<\/a>,\u00a0ahead of schedule<\/em>, earlier this month) and other lenders for funds needed to prevent a complete financial meltdown nearly eight years ago. Icelandic bankers are still being held to task for their illegal market legerdemain that nearly brought down the financial planet.<\/p>\n

In contrast, not one banker in America has ever (nor will ever?) be held responsible for their criminal acts. Instead, essentially\u00a0in addition to the $700 billion windfall<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 Big Banks are now raking in\u00a0over\u00a0<\/b>$160 billion in profit<\/b><\/a>\u00a0every year.<\/b><\/p>\n

Iceland\u2019s president, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson,\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0how his country not only weathered the storm, but has been labeled the first European country to\u00a0fully recover<\/a>\u00a0from the crisis:<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iceland\u2019s Bankers Face 74 Years in Prison While US Banks Profit After Your Bailout You could ice skate in Hell sooner than see the United States follow in Iceland\u2019s footsteps with this move: the 26th banker was just sentenced to prison for a combined 74 years between them \u2014 each of them jailed for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10185,8803,63,1833,10184,10187,10186,2119],"class_list":["post-13784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-2008-economic-collapse","tag-antimedia","tag-banks","tag-iceland","tag-jail","tag-kaupping","tag-landsbankinn","tag-tarp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13785,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13784\/revisions\/13785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}