Athugasemdir mínar við frétt Aftenposten

Ég skrifaði ritstjóra norska blaðsins Aftenposten athugasemd við frétt, sem birtist í netútgáfu blaðs hans 27. apríl. Nú hefur eitthvað af því, sem ég fann að, verið leiðrétt, en meginhluti fréttarinnar stendur enn, eins og sjá má hér. En athugasemdir mínar hljóðuðu svo (og skrifaði ég þær á ensku til almennari skírskotunar, en ekki á norsku):

There are several misleading or even wrong statements in the news item by Torbjørn Pedersen, NTB, on the Icelandic elections, published in Aftenposten 27 April 2013.

The Independence Party was not in power from 1980 to 2009. It was actually in government 1974–1978, 1983–1988 and 1991–2009, with coalition partners.

In the coalition government of the Independence Party and the Progressive Party in 1995–2007, the finance markets were not deregulated to any more extent than in other member-states of the European Economic Area, to which Norway belongs. The legal framework for the financial markets was precisely the same in Iceland as in other EEA countries.

Therefore, the common explanation for the collapse of the Icelandic banks, that there was too much deregulation in Iceland, is not plausible. The reason the banks collapsed was simply that they had grown rapidly, and the government and the central bank could not, on their own, keep them in operation during the international financial crisis, and there was no aid coming from abroad (while the US Fed, for example, helped the Danish and Swedish central banks at crucial moments in the crisis, thus saving Danske Bank and many other commercial banks). Moreover, the British made things worse by both forcibly closing the Icelandic-owned banks in London (unlike all other banks with offices, branches or affiliates in the United Kingdom) at the beginning of the crisis and by putting one of the banks, Landsbanki, on their list of terrorist organisations (and for a brief moment, also the Icelandic central bank and the Icelandic Ministry of Finance, and that for a country that does not even have a military force!)

There was perhaps one more reason for the collapse of the Icelandic banks: that risk was obscured by cross-ownership in the banks so that bank assets were overestimated. But the main factor was surely that in a financial crisis, a country with a large banking sector will suffer more than others.

For all these reasons, it is highly misleading to blame the two opposition parties, the Independence Party and the Progressive Party, for the 2008 bank collapse. It should perhaps also be pointed out that outgoing Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, leader of the Social Democrats, was a minister in the 2007–2009 government, and then a member of a special ministerial committee on government finances. It should also be pointed out that in 2007–2009 the minister of trade, bearing responsibility for the Financial Supervisory Agency, was from the ranks of the Social Democrats.

It is not true that there has been much economic growth in Iceland, after the 2008 collapse of the banks. In fact, the only economic growth there was, was from allowing owners of private pension accounts to take out their money. The left-wing government has raised taxes, discouraged investment, created uncertainty in the very important fisheries sector and imposed capital controls (which were supposed to be only temporary).

There has been, it is true, less unemployment in Iceland than in many other European countries. But this can be explained by the fact that the Icelanders have their own currency so that they could devaluate it in order to adjust wages to the current situation, whereas the euro countries did not have this option. It was indeed one of the campaign issues of the Social Democrats to adopt the euro which would presumable have brought about similar unemployment levels as those which can be observed in the euro area.