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?