RANT: The Rape of Greece

Greece is being raped - again.

Its very sovereignty is hanging on a the merest thread as its own government contemplates selling it right down the line, as the acronymed vultures named EU and IMF hover hungrily.



Greece is on the verge of having to declare bankruptcy. The last round of bailouts simply didn't do the trick after speculators and other financial terrorists targeted the country's fragile economy and 'huge' public debt. There's a surprise. And I bet the IMF is so very surprised that Greece is poised to default on its debt obligations.

Just yesterday a rash of desperate, last minute talks by the EU (read: namely Germany and France, the Big Bloody F***ing Euro Bullies) on another bailout for Greece came to nothing. The big problem? They couldn't get Greece to commit to even more painful cuts to public spending.

Yeah, 'public spending' - that innocuous-sounding phrase that actually means slashed government spending on social welfare, healthcare, education, pensions, supporting arts and culture - you know, all the things that make (or, rather, made) Greece a modern European country. All poised to be slashed yet again - and yet again it is the poor and the middle class of Greece who will take the brunt of all these 'necessary' cuts to public spending.

As if people were having cuts made to their ability to get daily manicures and pedicures and other such luxuries, you know.

'Cuts' made in the name of bailing out scheister banks, propping up a failed experiment that is the euro and kowtowing to financial terrorists like the IMF.



Greece is being raped, pillaged and its very guts ripped out. No wonder the people are in the streets, raging with anger.

This will go down in history as a shameful chapter in European and world financial history. No doubt about that.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Whew for Portugal...

It came close, so very close...but at least Portugal was able to raise enough money on the sovereign bond markets to steer clear of having to take an EU/ IMF 'bail-out'...

That is, at least for now...

Who knows how much longer Portugal will be able to resist the incredible pressures no doubt being placed upon it by the Twin Vultures, the EU and IMF, to agree to take that toxic potion that is a 'bail-out'...

The vultures that are the EU and IMF is so aptly illustrated in this poster for an Irish anti-bail-out demo last year...

'Bail-out'...what an innocuous-sounding, even glowing spin on such a heinous, crippling form of financial terrorism for EU countries, all orchestrated out of Washington D.C., with the full acquiescence of Brussels (make that Berlin and Paris)...

Still, for now, Portugal has resisted... VIVA PORTUGAL WITHOUT EU/IMF ENSLAVEMENT!!!

Y ahora...Espana?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Austerity & Other Nonsense

There is so much talk these days about austerity, austerity, austerity. Governments worldwide are brandishing this word around like financial sabres, ready to cut and thrust at everything and everybody in their wake.

It's been all the talk, nay, all the rage at the G-20 talks in Toronto.

It's all about cut, cut, cut.

And why? Because of the current global financial crisis (read: meltdown), of course. We're all told again and again and again in the media about how bad many developed countries' public finances are and how it is so necessary for austerity measures to be introduced so that the 'deficits' can be brought under control.

It all sounds so utterly convincing - if one hears it enough times (and, boy, don't we just). After all, the finances of a country need to be 'balanced', right?

Wrong.

This current obsession with 'balancing the books' of countries so that debt levels can be somehow 'stabilized' is NOT the only solution to governments around the world. Yet, the way many leaders and 'economic experts' (now there's perhaps the biggest oxymoron of our times...) speak, one would believe that only by slashing away at any public spending are governments going to get out of their current debt spiral.

This austerity obsession, deliriously manic in its 'all-or-nothing' worldview, has taken its grip. And it will not let go. Thus the need to dissect just what all this austerity will actually mean:

• slashed public (read: government) spending on health
• slashed public spending on education
• slashed public spending on infrastructure
• slashed public spending on social services
• slashed public spending on social upliftment programmes
• slashed public spending on single mothers
• slashed public spending on poor children
• slashed public spending on the poor - period
• slashed everything that creates any semblance of a welfare, communitarian state

But there's more. Inevitably, without exception, these austerity measures also mean:

• more selling of public (government-owned) assets
• more privatization, including of public utilities
• more 'open markets' (i.e. to foreign, cheaper imports)
• less trade barriers of any kind - whatsoever
• diminished unionization and union powers
• 'liberalization' of labour laws (as if workers being protected and having minimum rights somehow needs to be 'liberated')
• less restrictions on banks and other financial institutions

Hey, hold on a moment - this all sounds terribly familiar. This sounds just like the type of painful, nation-destroying program (obliquely referred to as 'structural adjustment') that is ALWAYS imposed by the IMF whenever it grants a loan to a country, right? Absolutely. And aren't the IMF and its other Evil Twin, the World Bank, nothing more than the international bank and finance versions of the so-called 'Washington Consensus' - i.e. the wholesale embrace of the Chicago School of Economics and its architect, that most vile economist, Milton Friedman?

Friedman is thankfully dead, but his nihilistic vision of economics is alive and well, i.e. the market always 'knows best', the market should be left completely unregulated, there should be no government interference in the market, etc. That magic 'market' that knows best and will make all of our lives so much better. You know - all that utter neoconservative economic crap that got us into this whole mess in the first place...

The very antithesis of Friedmanite economics is that of the Keynesians, the economic theory that dominated world economics and public financing from the 1930s until Friedman started to rear his ugly, perverse head in the 1970s.

We can thank the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes (in the photo) for his brand of 'caring capitalism' economics. Brilliant because the Americans stuck in the nightmare of the Great Depression in the early 1930s can thank Keynes for getting them out of it. The New Deal anyone? Where the hell do people think Franklin D. Roosevelt got the idea to pump money into the American economy with huge public works, thereby creating jobs and new prosperity?

The post-World War II Marshall Plan, not to mention the social welfare-based market economies of Western Europe from 1945 to the 1980s, were entirely Keynesian in theory and practice.

Where the Friedmanite (aka monetarists) cultists dictate that in bad times one should switch off the public spending taps, Keynesians believe that governments should spend, spend, spend. Keynesian theory says that in order to create wealth one must spend money to do so. Pump the economy full of cash, even if it creates more initial public debt.

Friedmanites, cultish to the hilt in their governments-out-of-markets-at-all-times hysteria, say this is madness. Debt is debt and debt is bad, they preach. So, it's slash, slash, slash for them.

Oh, but do make sure that the banks and stock markets remain completely unregulated so that they can run riot like the financial terrorists that some of them wish to be...and plunge us into this crisis all over again.

Yeah, the Friedman approach makes perfect sense.

And so we now live in this surreal and schizophrenic world of contemporary global finance and public spending. On the one hand, governments have pumped huge amounts of public money into the economy. That's Keynesian, whichever way you look at it. Except they've thrown all the money at the speculators and at the rogues (i.e. the banks, investment houses, etc), rather than benefiting the savers and those needing work in the economy. Ummmm, Keynes would not have approved.

On the other hand, governments resolutely refuse to really clamp down on banks, financial institutions on the whole, stock markets, etc. It's all been so wimpish, so piecemeal, so ineffective. And, worse still, now plunged into further debt because of bailing out banks, governments all over now insist on slashing public spending so that they can 'control the public debts'...!!! They simply can't seem to get out of the Friedman horror show that has gripped the world's economic imagination since the 1980s.

Hence the current economic schizophrenia.

It's madness. Just yesterday on the Keiser Report on Russia Today TV, Ellen Brown, who has written the critically acclaimed book "Web of Debt" (which I absolutely must read ASAP), spoke of how ridiculous it was that the new British government have been quoted as saying that they will need to slash spending in order to save the welfare state. She stated that warped logic was akin to "starving the patient even more in order to save the patient." In a word - preposterous.

Governments do NOT need to slash public spending in order to jumpstart ailing and debt-ridden economies. On the contrary - more than ever, they need to inject huge amounts of money into protecting those who save and don't merely speculate and, more importantly, making huge investments in job creation, skills development and other socio-economic programs. Yes, a country will get into more debt. A lot more debt even - without a doubt. Initially, that is. But at least the 'stimulus plan' will be effective in the long run - more jobs actually created, more spending power as a result by all citizens, more sustained growth.

The 1930s New Deal anyone?

AND, most importantly, at least public money will be kept in the public domain for the public good and not handed over to the robber barons just so that they can loudly say NO whenever anyone asks to borrow some of 'their' precious money (which is actually the public's, but anyway)...

Austerity is not inevitable. Austerity is not the only way.

Austerity. It's the 'A' word that should be an 'F' word.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Athens is Burning

Athens is burning. Protesters are going out into the streets of the capital in their thousands to demontsrate their outright anger at the proposed austerity cuts by the Greek government. Petrol bombs have gone off in the Greek capital and three people have died when a petrol bom was thrown inside a bank in the downtown area. How totally tragic.

The Greek people are showing just how much anger they have at the news that these austerity measures are going to include massive cuts to public worker pay, cuts in health and education spending, and many other public spending cuts. I was stunned yesterday to learn that Greek public school teachers have been told that their monthly salaries will be slashed to just 540 Euros - yes, a month. 540 Euros a month?! Who the hell can live on that in a modern European country?

And who do we to thank for all of this? Three little (ghastly) letters - IMF.

The International Mafia Fund has insisted that the multi-billion euro loan it is giving Greece is absolutely contingent on massive public spending cuts by the Greek government. No surprises there at all - this has been the modus operandi sine qua non for this legal Mafiosi financial cartel run out of Washington D.C. for years now. It's blandly referred to as 'structural adjustment' of a national economy. Typical unthreatening econospeak. It's nothing less than the rape, pillage and eventual evisceration of a nation's social welfare systems, social protections and public spending.

Goodbye public health, public education, the protection of workers' and labour rights. Hello privatization, slashed public spending and the whoring of your economy to the sharks that are international investors and banking. That's what you get when you allow the predator, the financial vampire that is the IMF into your country's finances.

Guatemala has been there. Argentina has been there. Countless other countries, nearly all in the developing world, have been there in one way or another since the 1970s. Now it's the turn of Greece.

The poor Greeks. This is what they get for having the corrupt governments they've had for nearly 30 years now. This is what they get for believing in the EU. This is what they get for becoming a member of the eurozone. This is what they get done to their hard-fought social welfare system and labour protections.

Greece has been sold right down the line. By its own governments, by the EU, by the European Central
Bank, by that greatest villain of all, the IMF. And the Greek people know it. Oh boy, do they know it.

There are reports from some Greek citizens that the riots are being 'overblown' by the media and that the protests are largely 'peaceful'. That may have been the case until today and, who knows, may yet be mainly the case...but I do have my doubts. The images on TV, as 'over-manipulated' as they might be by international news stations are nevertheless very disturbing when one remembers that this is a capital city in the EU that one is seeing before one's eyes. And it looks bad enough.

Can anyone really blame ordinary Greek citizens for their outraged anger and need to vent in the streets of their ancient capital?

And so parts of Athens burn. At least for now. I find it tragic to watch on TV. And it makes me so angry.

Just how much worse this crisis will become for Greece only time will tell. Sometimes time does not heal - sometimes time can be downright frightening.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Great South African EsCON

It's taken me this long to get over my EXTREME ANGER over a dirty little deal South Africa recently signed up...

Yet again the people of South Africa have been royally stiffed by the national electricity utility company.

Eskom or, by its rightful name, EsCON saw fit to request an international loan from none other than the IMF in order to finance what will be the fourth-largest coal-fired power station in the world.

A coal-fired power station. The fourth-largest of its kind in the world. With a loan from the IMF.

The mind BOGGLES at just how many bad angles those statements conjure up...

Let me deconstruct just how bad this deal is for South Africa and the environment:

1. Climate What?: Whilst the South African government proudly trumpets its 'commitments' to global warming and climate change, it acts as ringmaster and cheerleader for this deal it brokered between its reviled parastatal, EsCON, and the IMF. Experts agree that coal-fired power stations are the number one cause of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Numero Uno. And here we are, Africa's biggest economy, pumping more money into this dirty, filthy technology. With the name of Medupi. To the tune of USD3.75-billion to be exact.

It's greenwashing all over again, typical of governments the world over.

2. Old Hag, Will Travel: Coal-fired power stations are basically updated 19th-century technology. However you dress them and modernize them, they're still filthy and decrepit hags pumping out huge amounts of air pollution and countless other environmental impacts.

3. Renewable Que? Where the hell is this country's REAL and TANGIBLE commitment to alternative energy sources like solar, wind, wave and geothermal, all of which South Africa would possess in plentiful supply? Nowhere, of course. We'd rather shackle ourselves to a 'proven' polluting and frankly filthy energy source like coal, thereby relegating us to never-has-beens in the new global green economy. Such is the power and clout of the coal industry lobby in this country (with the nuclear crowd another bunch of thugs hogging the energy debate in SA), not to mention the collusion between the government, EsCON and major industrial entities that are known to get their electricity in this country (their DIRTY electricity, please note) for below cost. A collusion unchanged since deep in the bad old apartheid era, by the way.

Oh, and a pledge to use some of this money (about R230-million or thereabouts according to the con..ahem...agreement with the IMF) for 'renewable technologies' is frankly in bad taste. It's abit like the biggest loan shark in town loaning a heroin addict $1000 for his heroin habit and telling the addict they must set $75 aside for their rehab. Uh huh. You may call that a 'concession', I call it patronizing to renewable energy.

4. Putting out the Fires: Reading the comments of ministers and EsCON in the media one was given the unmistakable message that unless this Medupi power station is built the entire electricity infrastructure of this country would collapse by next week. Or tomorrow. In fact, make that yesterday. Where the hell does planning come into all of this, you incompetent idiots? It's the oldest, most boring political trick in the book - make a situation seem so bad, so untenable, so utterly URGENT that you will make people desperately accept any old nonsense you feed them, including making us more reliant than ever on dirty, outdated technology. At the very least it's sheer incompetence and bad management. At worst it's...well...

5. Banana Republic - Proof 1: The money has always been there, the scope of South Africa's energy needs has always been known, yet everyone runs around like headless nincompoops insisting that coal energy is the ONLY thing that has ANY chance of staving off the immediate return of South Africa to the Iron Age. And all this nonsense about "how much South Africa has grown since 1994" and "what a surprise" it's been to the government and EsCON is a pile of crap. These lies must stop. Our real GDP each year has barely surpassed 3% per annum, whatever bunch of economic data the government throws at us. This is hardly the People's Republic of China or India in terms of growth...

Yes, more people have electricity these days. Yes, the SA population is growing larger. Big deal. Boo hoo. Where was all the planning? Where were all the contingency plans based on projected demographic and economic growth rates? Nowhere, because incompetent fat cats were too busy lining their pockets at EsCON whilst the government chose to do nothing and this country's coal industry looked on rubbing their dirty hands in glee.

6. Banana Republic - Proof 2: Where there's an IMF loan, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be corruption. Or, in this instance, your bottom 3.75-billion dollars. There have been widespread reports in the country's media and abroad that the governing ANC (or members thereof) will stand to make up to R1-billion (about 2.75% of the total loan amount) what with its close ties to the chief construction company involved in this project. But, of course. Why shouldn't the head honchos in the ruling party not skim the cream off the top of this lucrative deal? It is for the 'better' of the country and they are the ones 'brokering' the deal. Right? Um...no, wrong. The ANC has been in power for too long and acts as such. In fact, it acts like most governments in power.

7. Bring in Da Mafia: Number 7 is such a magic number and so I have left the best for last. Not only does this country see fit to build the fourth-largest coal-fired power station in the world but...wait for it...we will do so with money from the International Mafia Fund! Hurrah! I think the fact we have 'secured' this money from the IMF angers me almost as much as having yet another huge polluting power station in the countryside. I put the word secure in parentheses for dramatic effect, because there's no such thing as 'security' when one is dealing with the biggest legal multilateral Mafia organization in the world.

The IMF, the most destructive, anti-society, anti-liberty, anti-democracy bunch of bastards in the post-WW2 era, has finally gotten its grubby claws right into the flesh of the Rainbow Nation. Where the IMF and its economic henchmen are let in, they never leave without huge socio-political and human rights costs to the host, never mind the ENORMOUS interest on loans this particular Mafia family always make. Just ask Argentina, circa 2002.

The South African government even had the nerve to declare very proudly how South Africa has never requested a loan from the IMF in the post-apartheid era (i.e. post-1994). Great. Thanks so much. And now, in the midst of a global recession that still doesn't let up, you choose to invite the biggest wolf of all into our lair. And you're proud of that? What a bunch of cretins.

With this deal South Africa has whored itself out to two very dangerous clients: meet Dirty Coal and the International MaFiosi.

I cannot yet decide which of these two will prove more costly to this country in the years to come.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Cuidado Portugal y España, Careful Ireland

My rant for today is essentially three words: Portugal, Ireland, Spain.

It's very simple - if the European Union saw fit to literally throw Greece to the proverbial wolves (i.e. the detestable IMF), then what is stopping it happening to these three countries?

The cartoon here by the brilliant Brazilian Latuff says it all...

The plates to be broken here are those of Portugal, Spain and Italy. However, although Italy was cited as being 'in trouble' a few weeks back, to my understanding it really is Ireland that is the actual 'I' in 'PIGS'...at least for now.

'PIGS' is the frankly disgusting acronym given to these four Eurozone countries, all in apparent trouble with their so-called 'sovereign debt'. Greece was in the worst trouble, hence it being sold down the river last week. But the public coffers in Portugal look pretty bad too, as is the case for Ireland. And Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the Eurozone, is said to be in very bad shape too.

So, will the EU allow three more countries to go the way of Greece? Certainly, Portugal and Ireland look quite expendable, for want of a better word. Portugal never seemed to ride very well on the EU bandwagon (must be that 'Club Med-southern European thing', methinks). But it's quite ironic that Ireland is in the 'PIGS club' given that it was a shining beacon of free market, neo-liberal economics until just recently. Ireland was the place to be in the EU, a true 'success story' it seemed - especially for those in IT, direct marketing, business or anyone with a bit of cash or an entrepreneurial streak.

How the tables have turned. Now Ireland is just another basket case. Hmmmm, yet another strike for neo-liberal Friedmanite economics.

And what of Spain? Can the EU really afford to let a country of that size and importance falter and possibly even be in danger of defaulting on its debt obligations? What then? And what will be of the Euro?

How much longer can this madness go on? Are Germany and France going to snub these countries too? Will the IMF simply become the de facto bank for the Eurozone?

For now, I am very worried for these three countries - not to mention all of the European Union.

I am half-Portuguese, a heritage of which I am proud, and I lived in Lisbon for a few years, a city in which I finished my schooling and which I visited every opportunity I had during my university vacations, it being a city I love and know so well. I do not want to see that beautiful country thrown to the dogs.

When will this European club ever finally come together and be united and there for all its members?

After all, is the second word in the letters 'EU' not union? Where is the union in this band of misfits?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Iceland - Please Vote NO

Tomorrow the citizens of Iceland will vote on whether or not Iceland should honour its so-called 'Icesave Bill'. This is a piece of legislation whereby Iceland must pay back the debt it supposedly owes to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands due to the collapse of one of its own banks, Landsbanki, in 2008 and, in turn, the collapse of Icesave.



Landsbanki offered their 'Icesave' brand as an online savings account - the draw being very high interest rates (read: greed) on this savings loan, thank you very much. Hence, the large number of investors who bought these loans - over 400 000 in the UK and Netherlands combined. When Landsbanki went into receivership in 2008, so too did their online savings buckeroo. For 6-8 weeks people holding these loans could not get their money out. A diplomatic row broke out between Iceland, on the one hand, and the UK and Netherlands on the other as to how Iceland would pay out these debts to so many foreign account holders.

But one has to first ask the question: Why did all of Iceland's three biggest banks, including Landsbanki, collapse in 2008? Some analysts have been critical of the way that Iceland's banks were so heavily leveraged (i.e. the amount of debt they had over and above their assets) by international standards. It was estimated that Icelandic banks were leveraged by more than five times Iceland's GDP. Not good economics.

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 (beautifully orchestrated by the likes of JP Morgan and those mega-scheisters, Goldman Sachs - more on that another time) came uncertainty as to the solvency of Icelandic banks. There was a rush on foreign accounts held in Icelandic banks and, well, the whole Icelandic banking system went into crisis, their three biggest banks collapsed and, suddenly, the Icelandic government and its parliament, the Althing, were left holding the baby.

The Althing formulated this 'Icesave Bill' as an attempt to bring into law a means by which these foreign account debts could be 'honoured' and it was passed in December 2009 (this after previous similar bills had been rejected by the British and Dutch as unacceptable). The proposed law was highly unpopular with Icelandic citizens, given how much debt Iceland would incur as a nation.

Then, on January 5th of this year the Icelandic President, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, stunned many by refusing to sign the bill into law. All hell broke loose. The Brits and Dutch threatening that Iceland's plans to join the EU would be vetoed, not to mention threats of international lawsuits against Iceland, and so forth.

My admiration of President Grimsson's refusal to sign into law measures that would be so prejudicial to Iceland knows no bounds. I have included a picture of him in this post. The man showed enormous courage and determination in refusing to succumb to the threats and bullying by the British and Dutch governments.

So, is Iceland really to blame? If you listen to the analysts 'critical' of their over-leveraged banks then, yes, the Icelandic banking system should take the rap. Please note these analysts tend to be of the CNN-MSNBC-BBC-Sky-News ilk, i.e. Wall Street and City of London parakeets to the hilt.

I mean, Iceland should be held accountable for its banks, right? These foreign accounts should be paid back by Iceland, right? Ummm, no.

Why do I scoff at these supposedly erudite analysts? And why do I make the assertion in this post that the Icelandic government and its people should not be held accountable for this debt? I'll tell you why:

1. Because just about every major bank in the world was super-leveraged by the time the global financial crisis hit in 2008, folks! Why the hell do you think so many major banks, especially in the USA and the UK, had to bailed out with government aid packages, i.e. taxpayer money?! They were in hock to the bloody hilt.

2. Because, unlike many other countries, Iceland's government simply did not have the public money to bail out its own banks. The money just wasn't there because international speculators, those economic terrorists from hell, had specifically targeted the Icelandic kroner and it had devalued enormously in 2008. Remember, Iceland is not a member of the EU and so did not have the 'comfort blanket' of the Euro (the bittersweet irony is that now the Euro is itself coming under attack from these speculators! Don't you just love globalized finance?)

3. Because, why must Iceland be vilified for its banking practices, when most banks worldwide, especially most of the big ones in the US and the UK, were being operated along the exact same, unsustainable lines?

4. Because why must, if the Icesave Bill is finally signed into law in Iceland, the country's citizens be okay with the fact that the country's debt will then be the equivalent of 13000 euros for every single citizen? Iceland will become the most indebted nation per capita on the planet. Would you be willing for your country to take on that amount of debt because of the shenanigans of a few of your own country's bankers in full cohorts with international bankers and financiers in other countries? Not to mention the fact that your country's currency had been specifically targeted for obscene speculation by a bunch of economic terrorists?

No, I didn't think you would be happy to do that? So why must Iceland?

5. Because why must Iceland be threatened with being vetoed entry into the EU or threatened with huge lawsuits just because it may choose not to honour a debt that will be so prejudicial to its national debt per capita? Why is it acceptable that the UK and the Netherlands are allowed to be such bullies against such a relatively small economy? Would they do that if the country in question was Italy? Or Spain? Or the United States? Hmmmm, interesting question that...no?

6. Because I hope that a 'NO' vote tomorrow in Iceland will force that country to review its way of getting out of its current financial nightmare. I do believe that being denied a bailout by the IMF, that Antichrist of international government aid, will be a very dark cloud with a beautiful silver lining to it for Iceland. An IMF loan always comes with stipulations designed to further enslave a nation to the whims of international investors and international (Mafia) finance, not to mention the slashing of public spending (read: education, healthcare, etc) and the lowering of labour costs and protections.

Don't let the Chicago Boys in, Iceland!

7. Because, quite frankly, I don't see why there should be any need for a country to 'honour' debt in an international financial system that is obviously so inherently rotten to the core and which it, like most countries worldwide, had been duped into believing was a basically 'honourable' and safe capitalist system. It is NOT honourable and it is not safe - the globalized capital market has become a Mafia domain. Countries are having their economies taken out by economic hitmen in the shape of investment banks and financiers (Greece, anyone?) and being forced (somehow) to have to pay for the mess and debt chaos that these economic terrorists wreak upon their economies. Why be honourable with a bunch of crooks? Stuff them.

8. Because for all the talk of 'innocent' account holders in this Icesave scandal, the majority are nothing but a bunch of middle- to upper-income people and organizations who wanted to make a quick buck with a savings account promising higher interest rates. Understandable, but still an element of greed existed. So, you got burned - I am sorry but, as they say, boo hoo. Welcome to the modern form of global capitalism. There is no level playing field in the markets, you dupes. Nice, isn't it? Time yuppies who love to 'play' the markets thinking they were so clever learned that often all that happens is they get played yourselves by a bunch of economic conmen.

And to all those municipalities who invested in these types of accounts and junk bonds just to try and 'raise more money' - shame on you for playing the markets with public money. You had no right to do so.

Let the UK and Dutch governments have to pay out these debts themselves if they care so much about all these account holders. Maybe then they'll think twice about allowing their own financial systems to become so rampantly unregulated and so at the mercy of international bankers and speculators.

9. Because the current globalized financial system is corrupt, perverse and is not here to serve you or I. It is in the hands of a very few of the mega-rich and the mega-bought-out and they are holding entire country economies and currencies to ransom. THIS is what you get when you allow capitalism to become unregulated uber-capitalism and allow for rampant speculation to become normative.

10. Because Iceland's vote tomorrow is a litmus test for just how much anger there is against the current global financial system. And because this could very well be the starting point of a citizen-led revolt worldwide against this sick, perverse system. This Icelandic vote may yet prove an interesting chapter in years to come about just what led the international uber-capitalist system to be overhauled.

Iceland needs to regain its dignity. And by saying 'NO' to its international debt obligations it will, paradoxically, regain a sense of self and a sense of nationhood. Any nation held hostage to the arbitrary vagaries and collusion of globalized finance should do just that.

Therefore, for all the above, and so much more, I can only hope that Iceland will vote a big, resounding NO tomorrow in the Icesave referendum.

Do you get my point?