Time to play the Brady hunch | David McWilliams

More good stuff from the man, scum-bertie and his supporters want dead.

Last week, we had the tale of two countries.
One country, Iceland, apparently did ‘everything wrong’ by defaulting on its bank debt and increasing government spending as the people of Iceland saved. Iceland told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to back off until it was ready to do a deal. It also put the bank deal to a referendum.
The other country, Ireland, allegedly did ‘everything right’ by promising to pay everyone every red cent and imposing huge austerity measures on its people.
We handed over the keys to the IMF without even taking a vote on the details of the plan.
When the vote is taken this week, we have already been told we can’t renegotiate any of it, so the next election – from a macroeconomic point of view – is academic.
What is the result of these different paths? Last week, Iceland cut its interest rates to 4 per cent. Its crisis is over.

Burn the bondholders!

Originally Posted by Baggie

Burn the bondholders!

Burn it all and rise from the ashes

[COLOR=green]The Celtic Phoenix[/COLOR] [SIZE=1](TM 2010 Asparagus Industries) [/SIZE][SIZE=2]will rise from the ashes of the Tiger and soar to new heights[/SIZE]

Once again he speaks sense.

Where are all the Pollyannas and fanatical Eurotrons that threw rocks at anyone a year ago who praised Iceland's approach for dealing with the crisis?

Common sense and logic, two attributes missing by the cartload in Irish politicians.

Common sense dictates that the economy will inevitably contract given the amount of cash the government is about to take out of circulation. Its growth figures are the stuff of fantasy. A circle that can't be squared.

Unfortunately for us, we had nobody negotiating the bailout with the balls to get up and walk away from the table, bouncing the solution for the crisis firmly back into the ECBs court. We rolled over, agreeing to un-repayable interest terms over too short a time frame without an element of debt write-off.

We've been shafted by the ECB, but even more so by our own spineless politicians, too frightened of running out of cash without realising that they held the ace card in their hands.

Originally Posted by Cassandra Syndrome

Where are all the Pollyannas and fanatical Eurotrons that threw rocks at anyone a year ago who praised Iceland's approach for dealing with the crisis?

They do seem to be in hiding

"Told you so" is a bitter message but maybe they got the more important one - "Now, shut the feck up, cos you know nothing"

Originally Posted by cozzy121

Time to play the Brady hunch | David McWilliams

More good stuff from the man scum-bertie and his supporters want dead.

More shyster economics from the red headed bluffer.
Mc Williams claims Icelands economic crisis is over.
Nonsense.
Iceland has been forced to reduce its expenditure on imported goods by a massive 40% over the past 12 months.

This is a direct reflection of the massive soaring costs of imports consequents on Icelands defaulting financial position.

The Crisis is not over and Mc Williams as usual is plain wrong.

Such massive increases in import costs has serious repercussions for the average standard of living in Iceland.

Should the Irish embark on the same mad course of default as expounded by mad Mc Williams and others expect to see the average costs of living in Ireland rise by more than 40% since the country is even more dependent on imports than Iceland.

Sources below from Icelands own bureau of statistics.

"External trade of goods, preliminary figures for November 2010
According to preliminary figures for November 2010 the value of exported goods amounted to ISK 48,300 million fob and the value of imported goods amounted to almost ISK 38,000 million fob. Thus, there was a trade surplus of almost ISK 10,400 million in November 2010, according to the preliminary figures, calculated on fob value."

Statistics Iceland - News******»****** News
Imports
The total value of imports of goods January-November 2009 was ISK 241,700 million or 39.7% lower at constant rates of exchange than in the same period the year before. There was a decrease in almost all items of imports, largest in industrial supplies, transport equipments and capital goods.
Statistics Iceland - News******»****** News

Originally Posted by The Field Marshal

More shyster economics from the red headed bluffer.
Mc Williams claims Icelands economic crisis is over.
Nonsense.
Iceland has had reduced its imports by a massive 40% over the past 12 months.

This is a direct reflection of the massive soaring costs of imports consequents on Icelands defaulting financial position.

The Crisis is not over and Mc Williams as usual is plain wrong.

Such massive increases in import costs has serious repercussions for the average standard of living in Iceland.

Should the Irish embark on the same mad course of default as expounded by mad Mc Williams and others expect to see the average costs of living in Ireland rise by about 40% since the country is even more dependent on imports than Iceland.

Sources below from Icelands own bureau of statistics.

"External trade of goods, preliminary figures for November 2010
According to preliminary figures for November 2010 the value of exported goods amounted to ISK 48,300 million fob and the value of imported goods amounted to almost ISK 38,000 million fob. Thus, there was a trade surplus of almost ISK 10,400 million in November 2010, according to the preliminary figures, calculated on fob value."

Statistics Iceland - News******»****** News
Imports
The total value of imports of goods January-November 2009 was ISK 241,700 million or 39.7% lower at constant rates of exchange than in the same period the year before. There was a decrease in almost all items of imports, largest in industrial supplies, transport equipments and capital goods.
Statistics Iceland - News******»****** News

A trade surplus is a bad thing?

Originally Posted by Asparagus

A trade surplus is a bad thing?

A trade surplus is not the same thing as a decrease in expenditure from 241,700 million to 38,000 million on imported goods.

Nominally this amounts to an almost 85% decrease in a 12 month period.

The only reason for such a massive anomoly is soaring costs.
This affects everybody in Iceland.

Trade surplus,s on the other hand simply mean that the values of exports exceed that of imports.

Naturally that would be the case where the value of imports has diminished significantly as is the case now in Iceland.

A trade surplus is just what would be expected.
Of itself yes it is a bad thing in the overall context of Icelands current economic condition.