Iceland Has Hired An Ex-Cop To Hunt Down The Bankers That Wrecked Its Economy … the government has appointed a white collar crime bounty hunter who wants to haul your behind in (alive, to be sure). LeMonde reporter Charlotte Chabas has a profile of Ólafur Pór Hauksson, a former local police lieutenant whom the Iceland government appointed to track down individuals likely to have helped sink the country's banking sector during the credit crunch. Hauksson's job description, according to PressEurop's translation of the piece. – Business Insider

Dominant Social Theme: We're gittin' them. Anywhere they run.

Free-Market Analysis: Though we've written a number of positive articles about Iceland, we're rapidly getting over the idea of Iceland as a courageous "mighty mite" standing up against Europe's "banksters."

Our re-thinking has been caused in part by the posturing of Iceland's president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who surely has had a hand in hiring a great scourge of white collar criminals, Ólafur Hauksson.

Hauksson is confident of his goals and like any good authority asks few questions. He is investigating abroad where he "enjoys full international cooperation." Further to his lustrous credentials, we are informed, is his success in arresting various "insider traders."

Of course, as we have covered the criminality of insider trading numerous times, asking how it is possible that such a thing is a crime when "insider" knowledge can be generated from expensive computers and other technology that is just as "unfair" as advance knowledge of company moves. You can see some articles here:

The Hopelessness of Insider Trading Prosecutions

Economist Portrait of Insider Trading Judge Trivializes Contradictions

Fresh from his triumphs over the non-existent crime of insider trading, Hauksson is ready to pursue commercial bankers around the world. No doubt the gangs of paper-money neo-national socialists (Greenbackers, Georgists and Social Creditors) who clog the electronic pages of the alternative media these days will rejoice.

But why? One of the worst features of modern judicial enterprise is the ability of prosecutors to reach around the globe. The US in particular has been very eager to sign extradition agreements with every thug and bully on the planet who has a titular role in leading a country.

Of course, we know where this is going. Any time the increasingly authoritarian Congress of the US wants to create another illegitimate law they can count on it being enforced globally. Again, many will celebrate this expanding fascism, but we're not so sure.

Nor do we celebrate Hauksson's pursuit of lying "banksters" around the world. If those at the top of the power pyramid in Iceland want to unearth and prosecute "criminals," well … let them look to their own system of central banking and the price fixing they are aiming at their own currency.

We wrote about this previously in "Lies That Iceland Tells Us?":

It's kind of funny the way the current public banking proponents point to Iceland as an example of fiscal probity. What currency controls actually are is government's attempt to use monopoly power to force investors and citizens to use only one kind of money, in this case the krona.

It is said that the krona would collapse entirely if currency controls were removed. That's because people do not want their holdings in krona!

Iceland's maladroit government is trapped by its krona dilemma. Pegging the krona to, say, the Canadian loonie might provide a solution but then Iceland's currency is held hostage by the monetary policies of another country. And Canadian central bankers are no more sensible than Icelandic ones.

As for Iceland's largest banks, only one is state owned. The other two apparently are mostly owned by creditors who would love to get their money out in a currency other than the worthless krona. In fact, Iceland's stake in these banks is due to be privatized whenever possible, though that may take a long time. Not exactly a raging endorsement of public banking …

Iceland's bureaucrats could simply let the krona collapse and allow people to choose the money they want to use. More to the point, those running Iceland's monetary policy could allow citizens to back the krona with gold or silver.

A convertible, gold-backed krona with a market-based ratio and citizen participation would make Iceland a monetary mecca. Iceland's monetary problems would be over the next day.

For us, the peak of Iceland's triumphant resistance was when citizens chased the national assembly out of the back door of the parliamentary building. But it's kind of been downhill since then.

Not for Iceland's president of course. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson ran successfully for a fifth term and part of his strategy evidently was to raise his profile on YouTube with his tale of how Iceland "stood up" to Europe. You'd think this guy Grímsson was a real rebel, but a little bit of legwork provides a more complicated picture. Wikipedia tells us the following regarding his views on global issues:

Grímsson has identified the 2009 financial crisis, the need for a green energy revolution, and climate change as the three most pressing issues in today's world. Declaring these three problems to be interconnected, he has said, "None of these three crises can be solved without solving the other."

… In relation to his efforts on these issues, President Grímsson has participated in the Global Creative Leadership Summit organized by the Louise Blouin Foundation, in 2007 and 2008. He was also awarded the Louise T Blouin Award for Creative and Cultural Achievement. In 2008, as a delegate at the Summit he delivered the Keynote Speech on Climate Change versus Globalization.

What is the Louise Blouin Foundation? Wikipedia tells us the Foundation organizes the Blouin Creative Leadership Summit as a "think tank" style forum along with various "partners."

The Louise Blouin Foundation is a strategic partner of the United Nations Office for Partnerships. The annual Summit is covered by international media outlets and is accessible online via audio podcasts and videos. The Louise T Blouin Foundation's flagship event took place at Harold Pratt House, New York City in November 2006 …

By bringing together influential leaders in business, technology, government, science and the arts, the Global Creative Leadership Summit, hosted by the LTB Foundation, hopes to unleash insights that will have practical implications for problem-solving across disciplines. How can business and government leaders benefit from knowing more about how the brain works? How can those who see the world differently come together to break through today's complex challenges?

Bottom line when it comes to Grímsson? Just another pol in bed with the globalists. He's apparently on board with every hoary dominant social theme of the larger power elite that he claims to be standing up against.

He's a global warmist and even a just-plain globalist. He's good friends with the fabulously wealthy Louise Blouin who hosts conferences in support of the United Nations and hands out prizes to people like Bill Clinton.

He's fiddling with money and fixing the price of the krona – by government force, of course. It was the PEOPLE of Iceland that rose up against those who want to saddle them with an impossible debt – one that had been accumulated by their bankrupt banks. But those banks floated aloft on European and American central bank monopoly-fiat currency.

Low interest rates and massive money printing made the Icelandic fraud possible. But hell will likely freeze over before Grímsson and Iceland's other pols take a long-term stance against the REAL problem –Iceland's version of central banking. In fact, from Bloomberg ("Grímsson Secures Fifth Consecutive Term"), we learn of his complicity in the banking scandal to begin with:

Grímsson, who had promoted the Icelandic banks before the crash, also played an active role in its aftermath, tapping into public resentment by using the rarely activated veto powers of the largely ceremonial presidential post.

He twice blocked a parliamentary accord that sought to repay British and Dutch depositors who had so-called Icesave accounts with failed lender Landsbanki Islands hf. Voters then rejected the agreement in a referendum and Iceland is now being sued by the European Free Trade Association for failing to honor depositors' guarantees.

Grímsson has said his pre-crisis support for the banks was based on assessments by Iceland's Financial Supervisory Authority, an agency that was later criticized for its failure to supervise the industry.

'Moral Responsibility' Iceland's Special Investigative Commission, in a 3,000-page report on the crisis published in April 2010, said Grimsson bears "moral responsibility for the theatrical play."

Grímsson may be many things but a heroic confronter of the monopoly fiat central banking system he's not. He's seemingly a rebel out of convenience rather than principle. And here's one more morsel that provides food for thought: Remember, please, this Icelandic banking mess was triggered in part by a WikiLeaks leak …

Now, we're of the opinion that WikiLeaks is likely an elite Trojan Horse, manipulated by Western Intel. If that's the case, then someone may have wanted the Icelandic banking mess exposed. This fits into a larger elite strategy we've presented numerous times.

Just as with the phony LIBOR scandal, the top elites are trying to create negative publicity about commercial banking. It's part of a campaign to create neo-Pecora hearings that will crush formal capitalization once and for all.

Now, in fact, the call has gone out to re-regulate Iceland's banks. In the future, before you can raise a dime on the public markets you'll probably need regulatory approval. And only cronies need apply.

After Thoughts

As in the 1930s, the powers-that-be are seemingly moving to demonize private enterprise in the securities sector (what's left of it) while keeping the true repository of ruin – central banking – above the fray.