Er peningaþvætti meginorsök bankahrunsins?

Ég skrifaði grein sem var birt í Smugunni fyrr í vetur. Í greininni dreg ég stórlega í efa að unnt sé að kenna almenningi um kreppuna. Gunnar Tómasson hagfræðingur hefur bent á að gríðarlegur vöxtur erlends vaxtakostnaðar (þjóðarbúsins) undanfarin ár sé tortryggilegur. Ég fann þessa umræðu á netinu en Gunnar er að skýra út fyrir Michael Hudson og fleiri ágætum hagfræðingum innihald greinar minnar og hvernig ég tengi hana við ummæli þeirra.

The column's title – Debts of families, Result of accounting tricks by the authorities – conveys the essence of its contents.

Jakobína’s concluding paragraphs read in translation as follows:

I want to refer to the words of economist Michael Hudson, but he is a former specialist with Chase Manhattan bank's real estate division and a respected professor at the University of Missouri but he comments on how the honesty of the general public make it an easy prey for capitalism.

The poor pay their debts as a matter of honor, even at great personal sacrifice and what today’;s neoliberal Chicago School language would call uneconomic behavior. Unlike Donald Trump, they are less likely to walk away from their homes when market prices sink below the mortgage level. (Sjá)

It should be clear to everyone who looks at economic statistics that the sky-high debt figures which the governments of recent years imposed on the nation did not end up in the pockets of the general public in in those of wheeler-dealers, criminals, government officials and probably mostly to foreign entities.

Now the propaganda masters trust that the general public will not understand the debt figures which are indeed incomprehensible to the human mind.  It is absolutely clear to anyone who considers these figures that the life style of the general public in Iceland does not explain them.  It has not been explained how these debts came into being and I note the words of economist Gunnar Tómasson, who has asked for possible explanations of the curious conduct of those in power: "I do not know – but fear – the answers to these questions.”

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This refers to an recent article of mine in the Icelandic media in which I noted that according to Central Bank of Iceland statistics, the ratio of gross external interest payments shown in the BOP to GDP rose from about 1/25th in 2004 to about 1/3rd in 2008. 

On a net basis, allowing also for recorded external interest receipts, the increase was from some 3% of GDP in 2004 to about 19% in 2008.

A possible explanation of this might have to do with money laundering – I noted an example thereof whereby black money deposited in a P.O. Box bank on some Pacific island might be re-deposited in a respectable European bank which in turn would lend the money to an Icelandic institution at a high rate of interest for relending in the Icelandic financial market where the Central Bank's policy rate of 18% makes it possible for all parties to the transaction - except the Icelandic borrowers - to make king size profits.

Athugasemdir

[Offari, 30.3.2009 kl. 09:47]

Er þá kreppan ekki mér að kenna?