Iceland recently jailed its 26th banker — with 74 years of prison time amongst them — for causing the financial chaos. Meanwhile, U.S. banking criminals were rewarded for their fraud and market manipulation with an enormous bailout and in sum cases a bonus at the taxpayer’s expense. Iceland—population 330,000—is showing America how to put the bankers behind bars. First, Iceland jailed its crooked bankers for their direct involvement in the financial crisis of 2008. Now, every Icelander will receive a payout for the sale of one of its three largest banks, Íslandsbanki. If Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson has his way — and he likely will — Icelanders will be paid kr 30,000 after the government takes over ownership of the bank. Íslandsbanki would be second of the three largest banks under State proprietorship. Iceland has the guts to do what is nessesary to put these people in there place it should be happening all around the world.
Good for Iceland! I agree with you martin. I thought we had laws in place to prevent illegal banking practices! It seems that our criminals are rewarded more than punished in America.
Only problem I see is the government taking over the bank. No matter how mismanaged or corrupt something is, when the U.S. government takes over it just gets worse. Maybe we should put the bankers and the politicians in jail.
What a contrast to the UK. The standard policy here seems to be: CEO of bank makes a complete mess of things, CEO gets fired, CEO takes away a £6,000,000 bonus. This does not apply solely to banks; the rewards for failure are substantial across all kinds of industry.
I work in a bank so it is logical for me to be interested in such news reports of bankers being jailed. That is not nice to read that so many bankers were arrested and jailed due to the financial mess they have caused. Over here, I don't remember a banker being jailed or even arrested. There is one banker a long time ago named Dewey Dee who ran off with the bank's money. He was never seen since. Obviously he had gone abroad and had assumed a new identity. But definitely not in Iceland.