Sweaty Palms as Danger Signal

“I should have walked away once I had figured out what was going on. I should have said: ‘I smell a rat and this is dangerous.’ That was what my intuition was telling me, but I ignored it because I thought I would be portrayed as a failure or a bad loser if I claimed that the deal was rigged. Instead, I wrote letters to the prime minister, the economics minister and the privatisation committee and did media interviews in which I said that the privatisation process for both banks was opaque and unclear. I told them that even Bulgaria’s privatisation rules were more transparent than Iceland’s. But my comments were ignored. Later, there was a parliamentary inquiry, which basically brushed over everything. After the crash, it became clear that what I had been saying had been justified.”

“So why didn’t I get off the carousel before it crashed? It is easy to ask that now, of course, but it is like being at a party that you know has been going on for far too long. You’re not the drunkest person there and you’re certainly not the instigator, but it is difficult in the middle of the party to be the lone voice saying: ‘Hang on; hang on. Let’s lower the music, tone it down; have a glass of water.’ That is not what happens and it was a bit like that. I got carried away in Iceland. My intuition told me that what was going on there was not sound. But the country was awash with business ideas and loans to fund them, and it was too easy to say ‘yes’. Now it is clear that I was in a fool’s paradise and I was the biggest fool. I had a ticket to go somewhere else but I didn’t use it.”