A new Facebook group calling upon the president of Iceland to veto the new Icesave deal has already attracted over 16,000 members. The group itself was started by former Wall Street broker and Ron Paul supporter Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson.
The group itself says in part in its description, “We will certainly go bankrupt if we have to pay for this nonsense. … Icelandic taxpayers should not pay a single crown of money owned by private banks. The court system way is the way we should go.”
The founder of the group, Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson, is himself a man with a long and interesting tale. An entrepreneur both in Iceland and in the United States, he worked for a time on Wall Street as a securities trader. Since then, he has apparently gone from one business venture to another and is, among many other things, a supporter of controversial American fiscal conservative Ron Paul.
The new Icesave agreement struck up between Iceland, the UK and Holland sees a reduction of interest rates from 5% for both countries to 3% for Holland and 3.3% for the UK, costing the government some 50 billion ISK (about 328 million euros). According to the official summary of the agreement, “Liability of the state is limited as far as possible and in fact solely limited to (a) payment of interest as it accrues until June 2016, and (b) the portion which has not been recovered from the bank’s estate after that time (the shortfall)”. Most of the debt is going to be paid from Landsbanki’s estate until the end of June 2016. Fuller details can be read in the link.
For his part, the Icelandic president has said that he believes the people should have the final say on the new deal, but did not specifically say that he intends to veto the proposal, should it be voted into law.
Related articles:
New Icesave Deal Met With Optimism and Scepticism
Opposition Parties Reject New Icesave Proposal
New Icesave Offer Could Cost Iceland Much Less
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