…but I told you so before the elections.
There isn’t much difference in voting for the Left Greens, Social Dems, Progressives or the Independence Party.
At least it doesn’t seem like a new government has arrived. The new one is still mired in secrecy, nepotism, stiff ideology and impotence.
I saw the Minister of Industry this weekend and thought to myself, “Well, there is the Minister of Industry”. What expert knowledge of industry has 33 year old Katrin Juliusdottir formed during her career as a ladder-climber within the Social Democrat party? The practice of appointing ministers with experience in their respective fields like Minister of Commerce, Gylfi Magnusson and Minister of Justice Ragna Arnadottir was a welcome change in the 80 days of the previous government, but as soon as they’d finished campaigning the people who considered themselves next in line came knocking on the door.
The only breath of fresh air comes from the Citizen’s Movement. Other parties are stuck in arguments over small things, who said what and who did what while the large issues seem to be left in a corner where it is hoped they disappear.
How did people expect change with what the four parties were offering? Eva Joly would probably give up if she looked around Althingi;
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson’s family became rich because his father was handed a state business on the cheap by the Progressive Party.
Bjarni Benediktsson has been a large owner and CEO of N1, the gas station business that was convicted of consulting with its competitors on price and then raised prices last week because of the new petroleum tax, albeit before it came into effect.
Arni Johnsen is a convicted criminal who was caught with his fingers in the state funds cookie jar, then managed to get his party members to grant him pardon. He is backed by large players in the fishing industry.
Asbjorn Ottarsson has been making serious money from the fishing quota system that needs an overhaul.
Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir’s family is said to have been relieved of a large loan that her husband used to purchase Kaupthing stock with while he was a manager at the bank. Those rumours have not been dispelled.
Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson was the chairman of Reykjavik Energy when it was trying to get in bed with all the money men and instrumental in the Geysir Green Energy fiasco, and he was found accepting large donations from FL Group, its owners.
Illugi Gunnarsson has still not answered these questions regarding Fund 9 at Glitnir, instead trying to twist and turn the story.
Helgi Hjorvar has supposedly had loans cut down but his party will not do that for households in the country. He also accepted donations from FL Group.
Siv Fridleifsdottir was the environment minister in the government that approved of the Karahnjukar dam and privatized the banks at the same time.
Steinunn Valdis Oskarsdottir accepted large donations from FL Group and Baugur.
Svandis Svavarsdottir rode in with huge promise when she claimed every stone would be overturned in the REI / Geysir Green issue. She then turned in a whitewashed report as soon as she was in the majority because her majority depended on the support of the Progressive Party, a large player in the matter. A couple of months later the Progressives had defected back to the Independence Party leaving a large egg on her face for not following through.
Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson wrote this
Johanna Sigurdardottir, Minister of Social affairs in Geir Haarde’s cabinet probably didn’t want to be prime minister but had to because of pressure from her party which was severly lacking in the trustworthy leadership section. She has all the aura of someone being somewhere she doesn’t want to be.
You could go on and on about our representatives in the legislative body but the fact of the matter is that the four parties are all utterly disqualified to lead and support the investigation that is needed.
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Roy
2 years ago
I am of the opinion that the majority of those who seek political office only do so in order to enrich themselves. We need to get behind the minority that actually is concerned with the welfare of the people. Álfram XO!
Vilhjalm A.
2 years ago
I am thinking that the best and easiest solution to the “Icelandic problem” is for Althingi to revoke the sambandslög of 1918 between Iceland and Denmark. Without that treaty Iceland is a part of Denmark, and wouldn’t that give Iceland everything it now wants?
In 1934 Newfoundland went broke and voted itself back into Britain. The final act of the Newfoundland parliament was to vote itself out of existence — it would be nice if the current Althingi would have the courtesy to do that.
Newfoundland’s sad story has some strange similiarities to Iceland’s.
“Newfoundland’s economy collapsed in the Great Depression, as prices plunged for fish, its main export. The government had borrowed heavily in the 1920s. By 1933, the public debt of over $100 billion compared to a nominal national income of about $30 million. In 1933, the budget deficit was $3.5 million or over 10 percent of the island’s GDP. A royal commission reported:
- The twelve years 1920-1932, during none of which was the budget balanced, were characterized by an outflow of public funds on a scale as ruinous as it was unprecedented, fostered by a continuous stream of willing lenders. A new era of industrial expansion, easy money, and profitable contact with the American continent was looked for and was deemed in part to have arrived. In the prevailing optimism, the resources of the Exchequer were believed to be limitless. The public debt of the island, accumulated over a century, was in twelve years more than doubled; its assets dissipated by improvident administration; the people misled into the acceptance of false standards; and the country sunk in waste and extravagance. The onset of the world depression found the island with no reserves, its primary industry neglected and its credit exhausted. At the first wind of adversity, its elaborate pretensions collapsed like a house of cards. The glowing visions of a new Utopia were dispelled with cruel suddenness by the cold realities of national insolvency, and today a disillusioned and bewildered people, deprived in many parts of the country of all hopes of earning a livelihood, are haunted by the grim specters of pauperism and starvation.”
The British description of Newfoundland’s failed democracy and incompentent politicians also sounds a bit like Iceland:
“Rival politicians … in the desire to secure election, were accustomed to make the wildest promises involving increased public expenditure in the constituency and the satisfaction of all the cherished desires of the inhabitants. The latter, as was natural, chose the candidate who promised them the most.
“…the electors in many cases preferred to vote for a candidate who was known to possess an aptitude for promoting his own interest at the public expense rather than for a man who disdained to adopt such a course.
“They argued that, if a man had proved himself capable of using his political opportunities to his personal advantage, he would be the better equipped to promote the advantage of his constituents; an honest man would only preach to them.”
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=3088