Islanti finanssioligarkian hampaissa

Professori Michael Hudson on laatinut pitkän, yli 30 sivuisen artikkelin, missä hän esittää arvionsa siitä mikä Islantia oikeasti on kohdannut. Kysymys on järjestelmällisestä taloudellisestä finanssihyökkäyksestä tai miksei - taloudellisesta sodankäynnistä. Islanti on saanut mielettömän velkataakan niskoihinsa - ja miksi: Kourallinen finanssikeinoittelijoita yhdessä ulkomaisen suurpääoman kanssa ovat Hudsonin mukaan vehkeilleet tilanteen niin että velkataakka on saatu sosialisoitua koko kansan velaksi.

Islannin hallinnolta vaaditaan nyt maan luonnonvarojen ja arvoresurssien myymistä velkataakan keventämiseksi. Samalla ne tahot jotka tätä jyrkimmin vaativat, USA ja Iso-Britannia, eivät itse maksele omia velkojaan - eikä sellaista tilannetta voisi edes kuvitella missä kukaan painostaisi näitä maita samaan mitä nyt esitetään Islannin ratkaisuina.

Hudson toteaa:

Iceland is under attack – not militarily­ but financially. It owes more than it can pay. This threatens debtors with forfeiture of what remains of their homes and other assets. The government is being told to sell off the nation’s public domain, its natural resources and public enterprises to pay the financial gambling debts run up irresponsibly by a new banking class. This class is seeking to increase its wealth and power despite the fact that its debt-leveraging strategy already has plunged the economy into bankruptcy. On top of this, creditors are seeking to enact permanent taxes and sell off public assets to pay for bailouts to themselves.

Velkaongelma ei tarkoita pelkästään rahanpuutetta vaan kurjaa tulevaisuutta koko kansakunnalle. Velka heijastuu islantilaiseen hyvinvointiyhteiskuntaan ja muodostaa uhan jonka sosiaaliset vaikutukset voivat olla hyvinkin katastrofaalisia.

Being defeated by debt is as deadly as outright military warfare. Faced with loss of their property and means of self-support, many citizens will get sick, lead lives of increasing desperation and die early if they do not repudiate most of the fraudulently offered loans of the past five years. And defending its civil society will not be as easy as it is in a war where the citizenry stands together in coping with a visible aggressor. Iceland is confronted by more powerful nations, headed by the United States and Britain.
They are unleashing their propagandists and mobilizing the IMF and World Bank to demand that Iceland not defend itself by wiping out its bad debts. Yet these creditor nations so far have taken no responsibility for the current credit mess. And indeed, the United States and Britain are net debtors on balance. But when it comes to their stance vis-à-vis Iceland, they are demanding that it impoverish its citizens by paying debts in ways that these nations themselves would never follow. They know that it lacks the money to pay, but they are quite willing to take payment in the form of foreclosure on the nation’s natural resources, land and housing, and a mortgage on the next few centuries of its future.

Kaiken kukkuraksi velkojat ovat onnistuneet junailemaan velan ehdot niin että velka on sidottu kuluttajahintaindeksiin. Tämä on Hudsonin mukaan ennenkuulumatonta ja tekee tilanteen jos mahdollista - vielä mahdottomaksi Islannille.

By indexing debt to the rate of inflation, it has guaranteed a unique windfall for banks that vastly increases what they receive in a “down market,” at the expense of wage earners and industrial profits. Linking mortgage loans to the consumer price index (CPI) in the face of a depreciating currency and heavy balance-of-payments drain to foreigners can have only one result: destruction of Iceland’s society and its traditional way of life.

Islannin tulisi protestoida ja kieltäytyä hyväksymästä tätä uutta velkaa. Koko velka tulisi itse asiassa Hudsonin mukaan kirjata pois. Hän toivoo että hallinnolla olisi rohkeutta tähän, koska koko maan tulevaisuus on vaakalaudalla.

The real issue is the health of the overall economy. The parties seeking the most are not the most indebted individuals, but the largest creditors. Their aim is to increase their dominion over the rest of society. Above all, their aim is to maximize the power of debt over labor. The worse the economy does, the stronger the creditor position will grow. This is a recipe for economic suicide that will lead to outright debt peonage as domestic depression intensifies.
Creditors everywhere else in the world are writing down their claims for payment to reflect plunging property values. Iceland has an opportunity to make itself a model test case for economic justice.
What better time to post the basic principle of what is to be saved – an unsupportable debt burden that must collapse in the end, or a society’s survival? Will the government defend its citizens from financial predators, or turn the economy over to them? That is the question.

Lue loput artikkelista englanniksi - tästä.