Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde Resigns, First Political Casualty Of Global Economic Crisis

The Independent:

Iceland's embattled Prime Minister Geir Haarde may have become the first political casualty of the global credit crisis, announcing his resignation yesterday, and clearing the way for elections in May. Illness was the official reason for Mr Haarde's decision to quit, but few in the capital Reykjavik were in any doubt that his departure was linked to a week of intense and violent public protests at once prosperous Iceland's economic implosion.

Read the whole story: The Independent

Comments

[weaselbasher]

11:44 AM on 01/27/2009

Max Keiser predicted all this in August 2007. There was a link to his report right here on Huffpo some time ago. Check out... Max Keiser :Predicting the collapse of Iceland ... on you tube

[markinaz]

02:07 PM on 01/26/2009

Hopefully this won't happen here in America. However, I'm guessing it's only a 50-50 chance that something like this won't happen in the UK.

[spinns17]

11:22 AM on 01/26/2009

its all our job to see that our hacks, that ran this country into the ground.pay for there wrong doings.viva icelanders viva

[pup sydney]

11:12 PM on 01/25/2009

why our kings, mean presidents, never resigns?
Why do we elect kings unmovable kings every 4 years?

[imajoebob]

08:16 PM on 01/25/2009

John McCain may have an argument about that.

At the least, it was a contributing factor.

[RJII]

05:38 PM on 01/25/2009

there are no casualties until the people do a saddam on these reckless political failures, starting w/Bush

[Mildmannered]

04:15 PM on 01/25/2009

bush was the first casualty

[brooklyncitizen]

08:19 PM on 01/25/2009

Hardly.

[VOTER]

08:28 AM on 01/27/2009

Huh?

You must have missed him heading home to Texas.................a FREE MAN!

[DLBSR]

12:12 PM on 01/25/2009

THE USS AMERICA : A SHIP IN PERIL - Part 4
We have appointed a new captain. He is inexperienced but gifted, and appears eager to secure America's helm. Our new captain will require our participation, wisdom, and moral compass if he is to successfully navigate the America through the menacing tsunamis forthcoming from our broadsides, port and starboard. The voyagers aboard the America have a transitory porthole of opportunity to incite our malfeasent crew to the impending perils. Our crew is obliged to hear our voices and obediently report to their posts, terminating their divisive and polarizing actions whilst hastily evicting those crewmembers that have appreciably contributed to the perils confronting us. The America has a commitment to the world to continue sailing through history, shining the light of self-determination and liberty from her lofty masts on the tempestous of nights, when all else seems forlorn. She will carry on, serviced by a crew dedicated to shielding her from impairment and her decks teeming with generations of admiring explorers that value the shelter she affords and with hearts that embrace the knowledge, she is the greatest ship to have ever plowed the seas of history.

[MagisterLudi]

12:39 PM on 01/25/2009

hot air gently blows

[jalapeno]

12:43 PM on 01/25/2009

Just shut up and bring me a Pina Colada!

[KillTheMessenger]

02:40 PM on 01/25/2009

I second that. Too many words, no substance.

[DLBSR]

12:01 PM on 01/25/2009

THE USS AMERICA : A SHIP IN PERIL - Part 3
Fortunately, we ordinary voyagers onboard this magnificent ship do have the power to rescue her. We must become a united assemblage of voyagers focused on the common objective of saving this great ship from the impending perils. We must be cohesive, resolute and unyielding in our efforts to ensure the America emerges from her current struggles to subsist. We must become traditional Americans, renowned for our fortitude, resilience and our courage, collectively speaking in a voice of sufficient magnitude to overwhelm the roar of the onrushing tsunamis as well as the discordant and caustic chorus of our malfeasent crew. We must grow to be one family, the AMERICAN FAMILY, united and standing strong. We must stand arm-in-arm and shoulder-to-shoulder if we are to successfully deal with the arduous challenges confronting us. Otherwise, this ship will perish beneath the waves of history while we witness her piteous cries of anguish, taking with her the dreams and aspirations og generations past and generations yet to come.

[DLBSR]

11:48 AM on 01/25/2009

THE USS AMERICA: A SHIP IN PERIL - PART 2
Sub-prime, the first-born tsunami has two meanacing siblings, Alt-A and Option ARM, each born from three seismic disturbances with epicenters on Wall Street in New York and along Pennsylvania Avenue In Washington. The three tsunamis share the universally recognized surname of Mortgage.
Alt-A and Option ARM are much larger than Sub-prime, and if permitted to collide with the already weakened America unabated, catastrophic and incalculable damage will be inflicted to her. As with the tsunami Sub-prime, the captain and crew have fundamentally ignored the ominous nativity and swift nascent of Alt-A and Option ARM while appallingly striving to dispense culpability for America's present challenges to surrogate bureaucracies and institutions, thus affording both Sub-prime siblings an unhindered course to America's broadsides. These are the perils threatening to propel the great ship America into the abyss.

[jstowe100]

11:25 AM on 01/25/2009

I am most impressed by the Icelanders taking to the st reets. What would it take to get Americans out there en masse? Are we too large and disjointed a nation to organize in this way? I wonder if the msm would even cover the protests.

[Patricia84]

10:09 AM on 01/26/2009

If it were big enough, they definitely would ... but people would have to get passed the fear of being branded as unpatriotic first ... and I don't see that coming anytime soon.

[VOTER]

08:31 AM on 01/27/2009

Vietnam Protests were the last real stand taken by many Americans.

I protested Bush War of Choice but too many Americans didn't for
whatever reasons.

If only........................................... we had been united back then.

[DLBSR]

11:09 AM on 01/25/2009

THE USS AMERICA: A SHIP IN PERIL - PART 1
We are all onboard this ship, the USS America. She is in jagged seas, reeling from the shock of a tsunami that walloped her in the quiet of night. The USS America, severly battered from the affects of a tsunami forenamed Sub-prime, is struggling to remain afloat. The greatest threat to the America comes from a comparatively small but authoritative assembly of materialistic and dishonest fellow voyagers as well as our malfeasant crew whom have failed to chart a course for this ship to safely transit the turbulent seas in which we find ourselves.
The injurious and potentially mortal harms inflicted upon the America were born from three seismic upheavals occurring along the notoriously vibrant fault lines celebrated as greed, duplicity, and malfeasance. The original tsunami with the Subprime moniker struck the America from astern in the quiet of night, thieving the wind from her sails, and detaching fellow voyagers from their chattels. The captain an crew, presented abundant forewarning the tsunami was growing in intensity even as it sprinted toward the America, failed to develop pre-emptive strategies deigned to protect the America from the resultant ravages of Sub-prime's ferocity.

[winningticket]

10:07 AM on 01/25/2009

While Iceland's leaders made mistakes to be sure, Iceland was targeted for destruction by thug firms in New York and London like Paulson's Goldman Sachs, the defunct Bear Sterns, etc. These rogue firms were intent on driving Iceland's economy into the ground by destroying her currency, the Krona. Bloomberg and NYT ran stories on that early in 2008 if you wonder where I got my info from, so I am not wearing a tin foiled hat. Along with Iceland, Goldman Sachs also went on to destroy the Mexican Peso's value in the fall forcing Mexico's Central Bank to buy Dollars to shore up her Peso. Currently Hungary and her Forint is under attack by these speculative thugs. The criminals are not in Reykjavik, but they are in New York and London and benefitting nicely from government bailout money. These thug investment firms and banks with are leaving a trail of econimic destruction and broken dreams and laughing all the way. My heart goes out to the people of Iceland and other emerging economies targeted for destruction.

[KillTheMessenger]

02:41 PM on 01/25/2009

If you ask the majority of people at Wall Street, they won't even be able to show you where Iceland is on the map. US high school education failures at work.

[UnionJok]

04:27 PM on 01/25/2009

The krona has long declined in value so consistently that every few years a "new" krona is established, worth 100 of the nearly-worthless "old" ones.

[totaldisbelief]

09:59 AM on 01/25/2009

Can we study little Iceland to see what will be the Fallout? What sorts of things are happening now in Iceland as far as the average person is concerned?

[KillTheMessenger]

02:42 PM on 01/25/2009

Iceland has the economy of a small town in the US. Why would you try to use that as a study object? It will tell you nothing about the global economy.

[Cinnamonape]

03:42 PM on 01/25/2009

Actually Icelands ecnomy is a lot bigger than a "small town". And what it represents is the interconnection of global economics into the micro-level. Iceland is the canary in the coal mine simply because it had bought into globalized financial integration and investment strategies. But it cannot insulate itself from the immediate effects that wuill slowly creep up and consume other, larger, economies.

Remember taht one of the mantras now used is "it's simply too large too allow to fail". But that is a hope, not a reality.

Iceland is like every larger city in many respects...with pensions, municipal utilities, external investors, local banks that have portfolios that extend outward, and a handful of primary economic pillars. What's occurring in Iceland can, and likely, will..happen in every city in the world unless the economic scaffolding of artificial wealth and risk-taking that is shoveled off on those that were not benefiting from the high stakes game-playing aren't ended.

[jaschrod]

09:19 AM on 01/25/2009

This is what happens when you turn over your monetary system to the banks. Thomas Jefferson told this country over 150 years ago that turning over the monetary system to the banks would destroy it, and it has.

Learn about true computer protection for the near future by incorporating a TPM module on every mother board, and software for encrypting. This has been around for a while, it was just way ahead of it's time. Our National Defense Department is finally looking seriously at this right now. This is the only way to protect our data. Remember this small company ;name (WAVE Systems Corp.).

https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/home
http://wave.com/

[Space Walker]

09:54 AM on 01/25/2009

Our monetary system will be right there with Iceland in a month or so. Andrew Jackson fought with the banks and abolished it, we were bank free, with minuscule debt, until Woodrow Wilson signed our sovereignty away in 1913.