parliament

"In a talk in Reykjavik in October 2011, the chief economist at Citigroup, Willem H. Buiter, likened the talent pool in Iceland to that which could be found in a mid-sized city such as Coventry in England. The nation couldn’t therefore logically expect to provide good people for the Treasury, the Central Bank, the FSA, the courts, the parliament, the Foreign Office or the business sector. Buiter told his stunned audience that he had never witnessed such collective stupidity in any developed country as was so dominant in Iceland during the last fifteen years before the crash of 2008. Strong words indeed, but he had a good point."

"In 1998, the Swedish Enskilda Bank showed interest in buying a third of Landsbanki, but the talks fell through. Later that year the government decided to publicly sell off a 15 per cent stake in each bank. The demand for shares was enormous and it was clear that the state could have sold its entire stake had it wanted to. In 2001, parliament permitted the sale of the rest of the state’s shares in Landsbanki and Bunadarbanki on the basis that the state should not be doing business that the private sector was capable of doing. In its efforts to sell its shares in Landsbanki, the government enlisted HSBC to find buyers abroad. For the time being, no attempt was made to sell Bunadarbanki."