Britain, UK & Pound Sterling Are About To Go Bankrupt!
(1) England = Just England (RED) + Wales (LIGHTER GREEN) (2) Great Britain = England (RED), Wales (LIGHTER Green) + Scotland (BLUE); all together 3 countries. (3) U.K. = England (RED) + Wales (LIGHTER GREEN) + Scotland (BLUE) + Northern Ireland (GOLD), all together, 4 countries.
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the water and fire signalling the arrival of the paper apocalypse as ever more analysts warn of the debt and credit bubble as governments put their faith in share traders who, a new study shows, are more manipulative than psychopaths. In the second half, Max Keiser talks to professor and economist, Steve Keen, about the fiscal cliff and private sector deleveraging. They also discuss the possibility of a currency collapse in Japan.
“Inside Job” as a whole, is a work of propaganda aimed at diverting attention away from the corrupt congressional leaders who were fundamental in protecting the deregulation the banks by blocking any attempts by the conservatives to re-enact The Glass Steagall Act after Bill Clinton repealed The Act in 1999.
NARRATOR: Iceland is a stable democracy with a high standard of living; and until recently, extremely low unemployment and government debt.
Andri Magnason. Writer and Filmmaker
ANDRI MAGNASON: We had the complete infrastructure of a modern society; clean energy, food production, fisheries, with a quota system to manage them.
Gylfi Zoega. Professor of Economics, University of Iceland.
GYLFI ZOEGA: Good healthcare, good education; you know, clean air; uh, not much crime; uh, it’s good, a good place for families to live.
ANDRI MAGNASON: We had almost, uh, end-of-history status.
NARRATOR: But in 2000, Iceland’s government began a broad policy of deregulation that would have disastrous consequences; first for the environment, and then for the economy. They started by allowing multinational corporations like Alcoa to build giant aluminum-smelting plants, and exploit Iceland’s natural geothermal and hydroelectric energy sources.
ANDRI MAGNASON: Many of the most beautiful areas in the highlands, with the most spectacular colors, are geothermal. So nothing comes without consequence.
Inside Job transcript – Sony Pictures – September 2010 2
NARRATOR: At the same time, the government privatized Iceland’s three largest banks. The result was one of the purest experiments in financial deregulation ever conducted.
DEMONSTRATOR: We have had enough! But how could all of this happen?
GYLFI ZOEGA: Finance took over. Um, and uh, more or less wrecked the place.
NARRATOR: In a five-year period, these three tiny banks, which had never operated outside of Iceland, borrowed 120 billion dollars, ten times the size of Iceland’s economy. The bankers showered money on themselves, each other, and their friends.
GYLFI ZOEGA: There was a massive bubble. Stock prices went up by a factor of nine; uh, house prices more than doubled.
Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson 44 years old.
NARRATOR: Iceland’s bubble gave rise to people like Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson. He borrowed billions from the banks to buy up high-end retail businesses in London. He also bought a pinstriped private jet, a 40-million-dollar yacht, and a Manhattan penthouse.
Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson’s pinned strip private jet.
ANDRI MAGNASON: Newspapers always had the headline: this millionaire bought this company, uh, in the UK, or in Finland, or in, in France, or wherever; uh, instead of saying, this millionaire took a billion-dollar loan to buy this company, and he took it from your local bank.
Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson’s private yacht.
GYLFI ZOEGA: The banks set up money market funds. And the banks advised deposit- holders to withdraw money, and put them in the money market funds. The Ponzi scheme needed everything it could, huh?
Liberal Matt Damon Narrator & CFR agent Charles Fergusson
NARRATOR: American accounting firms, like KPMG, audited the Icelandic banks and investment firms, and found nothing wrong; and American credit-rating agencies said Iceland was wonderful.
Sigridur Benediktsdottir. Special Investigative Committee, Icelandic Parliament.
SIGRÍÐUR BENEDIKTSDÓTTIR: In February 2007, the rating agencies decided to upgrade the banks to the highest possible rate – AAA.
Inside Job transcript – Sony Pictures – September 2010
GYLFI ZOEGA: It went so far as the government here traveling with the bankers, as a, as, as a PR show.
NARRATOR: When Iceland’s banks collapsed at the end of 2008, unemployment tripled in six months.
ANDRI MAGNASON: There is nobody unaffected in Iceland.
CHARLES FERGUSON: So a lot of people here lost their savings.
GYLFI ZOEGA: Yes, that’s the case.
NARRATOR: The government regulators who should have been protecting the citizens of Iceland had done nothing.
GYLFI ZOEGA: You have two lawyers from the regulator, {STUTTER} going to a bank to talk about some issue. When they approach the bank, they would see 19, uh, SUVs outside, heh, outside the bank. Right? So you got to the bank, and you have the 19 lawyers sitting, uh, in front of you, right? They are very well prepared; uh, uh, ready to kill any argument you make. And then, if you do really well, they offer you a job, right?
NARRATOR: One-third of Iceland’s financial regulators went to work for the banks.
GYLFI ZOEGA: But this is a universal problem, huh. In New York, you have the same problem, right?
Political Vel Craft 