Why not a draw instead of elections?

A thought regarding parliament elections. Less than two months away. 

The basic idea of a parliament must be that the representatives of the people have a say in legislative and governmental matters.

But we have experienced a long stretch in history of professional politicians who have shown that they are usually representatives of pressure groups and special interest groups, less themselves and even less the people.

So how about a draw instead of an election?

Sort of like jury-duty in the United States, it would be your duty to perform this service for your country.  Four years in parliament and the way to get there would be by pure chance, not by outspending your rivals? 

Then you’d really get a gathering representative of the people. 

We could still have votes on the executive branch which would be seperated from the legislative branch. But this way we’d get an interesting opportunity for checks and balances. 

It would be really easy to perform this draw in Iceland. Put all social security numbers above a certain age into a database and then draw the winning numbers. Other countries have a military duty for their citizens, we could have a duty to serve your country in the legislative branch.  

I can think of a hundred different reasons why this system could be controversial. 

But I know a thousand different reasons why the system we have is deeply flawed.

Who will receive the get out of jail card?

“I was so lucky, I just sold all my stocks and transferred my pension into a safer account.” 

- Former banker 

“I am screwed. My boss told me in the summer that I should change my home loan into an currency loan. It has now doubled. I cannot afford to miss a single paycheck.”
- Current banker 

Life is a funny game.  Iceland has been through a strange mix of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Monopoly and now the chips are down. Everyone’s is suddenly in jail. Businesses and individuals are indebted to the hilts, savings are gone, plans are out the window.

Something needs to be done. So far the government’s thinking has been limited to handing out “get out of jail” cards. But it is absolutely unclear who will be on the receiving end and why.

Might the problem be that we are still playing by the rules of the old game? The one where the guidelines were unclear and unfair. 

The Internet and media is filling up with videos and explanatory articles about the way our game has been based on the mulitplication of debt without foundation. Where the loopholes were many and it was easy to cheat. 

Many trained economists are currently either speechless or grasping thin air, like clerics who have been given a definite proof that God does not exist. The game didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. 

Now we are faced with several options, many which revolve around changing the game. But it seems more likely that the government in Iceland, like so many others in this situation will be handing out “get out of jail” cards instead. 

But it would be nice to know: 

- Who got phone calls from friends and relatives in banks and government in the couple of weeks leading up to the economic crash and were therefore able to sell their assets?

- Who didn’t get those kinds of calls? Why? 

- Who figured out to call themselves and ask for their assets to be sold, only to be convinced otherwise by banking staff? Why? 

- Whose companies are being bankrupted and whose are being helped? Why? 

- Who will get to purchase broken companies? Who gets to decide? Why?  

- Who will get their individual debts written off? How much? Why? 

- Who won’t get their individual debts written off? How much? Why?

Questions on whaling

Some important questions on whaling. 

Would tourists who don’t want to travel to Iceland because Icelanders eat whales, not travel to China because they eat dogs?

Would businesses who don’t want to do business with Iceland because they attacked whales, not do business with the UK or the US because they attacked Iraq?

And then, isn’t it alright to criticise things that are questionable in other countries even if your own politicians have screwed up majestically?

Councils have £900 mln hole due to Iceland banks

The (UK) government acted on Thursday to stop local councils slashing services and raising council tax to cover a hole in their budgets of more than 900 million pounds caused by their investments in failed Icelandic banks.

From Reuters

Iceland’s Q4 economy shrank 1.3 pct yr/yr

Iceland’s economy shrank 0.9 percent during the fourth quarter and 1.3 percent from a year earlier, preliminary data showed on Friday.

From Reuters

Lehman and Iceland Sting ECB

Defaults from the German arm of Lehman Brothers Holding and three Icelandic bank subsidaries were among the reasons the European Central Bank reported Thursday that its annual 2008 accounts show it is owed more than 10 billion euros.

From the Wall Street Journal