‘drop the debt’ owed to the British and Dutch governments. This petition reflects the view of 70% of Icelanders, according to a poll taken in

August. This debt – which amounts to 12,000 Euros per Icelandic citizen – is the result of reckless lending by an unregulated, private

bank – and reckless, unregulated borrowing by British and Dutch depositors that earned high real rates of interest on their risky deposits

– until things went wrong. For political reasons, these depositors were bailed out by the British and Dutch governments – at a cost of

about 50 Euros per citizen. A country with a population the size of the city of Leicester – 317,000 – is now asked to bear the full

burden of losses incurred by a private bank, and by private citizens in two countries with a joint population of 76 million. Icelanders – the

people of countries as diverse as Rwanda, the Phillipines and Argentina feel your pain. Millions of Jubilee 2000 campaigners would salute your

struggle to drop the debt. They would urge you to follow their example, and keep up the pressure. After all they did not give up until more than

$100 billion of debt owed by 42 countries was acknowledged as unpayable by powerful creditors. You dear people of Iceland, can do the same. (link

to article) [...]

campaign? . [...]

Iceland Agrees to Pay Britain and the Netherlands the Equivalent of $4.2 Trillion to Make Amends for Its Bankers

The NYT reported on the decision of Iceland’s parliament to pay $5 billion to British and Dutch depositors. Since most readers are not

familiar with the size of Iceland’s economy, it would have been useful to point out that this is approximately equal to 30 percent of Iceland’s

GDP. That would be approximately $4.2 trillion in the United States.

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