Iceland Recovering From Neoliberal Disaster_on Guns & Butter
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GUNS AND BUTTER with Bonnie Faulkner
Iceland Recovering From Neoliberal Disaster – Dr. Michael Hudson
Iceland’s banking crisis and foreign debt; it’s decision to push back against IMF and World Bank austerity; Gordon Brown’s role in the Icesave scandal; the capacity to pay principle; similarities with Germany’s foreign debt reparations from the 1920s; European Union disarray; media omissions. Dr. Hudson was the Chief Economic Policy Advisor for the Kucinich for President campaign, and is writing a new tax policy for the United States. He is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of “Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire”. Visit his website at www.michael-hudson.com. Recorded 8/2009 but still extremely relevant today.
NEWS UPDATE: March 8, 2010:
Voters in Iceland Reject Payment of $5.3 Billion Foreign Debt
Voters in Iceland have rejected a plan to pay $5.3 billion to Britain and the Netherlands to reimburse customers of a failed Icelandic internet bank. Ninety-three percent of Icelandic voters opposed spending the money. The $5.3 billion owed represents more than 40 percent of Iceland’s gross domestic product. Britain has warned Iceland that it risks becoming an international pariah if it does not pay the money back, and the IMF is delaying a bailout package for Iceland. But Icelandic voters overwhelmingly rejected the threats from the international community.
Smar McCarthy, Icelandic voter: “I think that what’s happened is that people have said that they are not willing to accept being put into any sort of debt slavery. People want to have a fair and equitable result from this entire crisis.”
