Here’s Why You Should Only Work with an Infinite Banking Authorized Practitioner

When you need to prepare your taxes, you go to your tax professional.

When you set up your living trust, you go to an estate planning attorney.

When you want to buy or sell a property, you go to a real estate professional.

Foot issues?  See a podiatrist.  Is your baby is sick?  Go to a pediatrician.  Kitchen remodel?  Hire a contractor that specializes in kitchens.  And on and on we can go.

If this sounds like common sense, it’s because it is.  The point is we seek out specialists in their field when we have specific goals we want to accomplish.  It’s the best way to assure that we get what want-- the best advice from experienced professionals.

When it comes to the Infinite Banking strategy, there are specialists across the United States who have completed the necessary training and been approved by the Nelson Nash Institute to teach and implement the Infinite Banking strategy properly.  You can find an authorized practitioner here:  https://infinitebanking.org/finder/

Here is why you should only speak to an IBC Authorized Advisor:

Whole Life insurance is a financial product.  Infinite Banking is a financial strategy.

There’s no end to the amount of incomplete information about life insurance on the internet.  

There are many life insurance options and no one size fits all.  Anybody who tells you should only buy a certain type of life insurance product probably isn’t qualified to be giving advice in the first place or have a professional agenda to steer you to something only they can offer.

The best life insurance product is the one that accomplishes an individual’s goals and everybody’s situation and priorities are different.  If obtaining life insurance protection is your goal, you should work with a professional who can educate on the pro’s and con’s of all the different life insurance products available. 

Pretty simple.

Taking it a step further, if you are interested in learning more about Infinite Banking, it’s important to know Infinite Banking can be accomplished with different financial products but none as well as a participating Whole Life policy from a mutual life insurance company. 

Definition of product:  an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale.

Definition of strategy:  a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

If you want to incorporate Infinite Banking into your personal financial picture, then you want a strategy, not a product.  To that end, you want a specialist who knows the field better than the rest.

In working with an IBC authorized practitioner, you’ll be working with someone who practices the strategy and can speak about their personal experiences.  They should be able to tell you exactly how they’ve used the strategy to build wealth.  If they can’t do that, they have not fully implemented IBC. 

Furthermore, any advisor can speak about a Whole Life policy but most advisors don’t even own a Whole Life policy let alone practice Infinite Banking.  Owning and practicing Infinite Banking with a properly designed IBC Whole Life policy is a world of difference!

In addition to the specific Infinite Banking training they receive, all IBC authorized advisors must own their IBC designed policies in order to be certified practitioners by the Nelson Nash Institute. 

   

It’s worth mentioning that not all Whole Life policies are the same and certainly not up to the criteria needed to be used for Infinite Banking.

Example, people who buy final expense whole life policies technically have a whole life policy but this is far different policy from the type of whole life policy an IBC authorized advisor would use for Infinite Banking.  Final expenses have little to no cash value growth and no flexibility or collateral capacity to use for banking purposes.

Another example are Gerber baby policies.  These are technically Whole Life policies but they are non-participating policies which means they pay no dividends.  They also cannot be used for banking purposes. 

Switching gears, it pains me to say that there are advisors who advocate and teach Infinite Banking but are not Infinite Banking authorized advisors.  They have not been interviewed by the Nelson Nash Institute, passed the necessary curriculum and gone thru the mentoring program to be approved as an IBC authorized advisor.   They contribute nothing to the community of advisors who have committed to upholding the highest levels of integrity to the public who are asking for the Infinite Banking strategy.

All IBC authorized advisors take very seriously a code of ethics to structure and implement only the correct type of Whole Life policies for the Infinite Banking strategy.  It’s because advisors were using the Infinite Banking name and peddling different recommendations that Nelson Nash created what was first called the Infinite Banking Institute, later changed to the Nelson Nash Institute by the board of directors to honor Nelson and his legacy.

My advice:  work with an IBC authorized advisor who is trained and vetted versus those who fail to meet the requirements and can potentially put you at risk by recommending policies that are not right for the IBC strategy. 

If an advisor is promoting IBC but is not a verified advisor on the Nelson Nash Institute website, you should ask him/her why that is.   

Action Plan:  3 Steps

1.      Connect with an IBC authorized advisor.  Get a high level overview and learn the basics of the strategy.  If it makes sense logically, request a customized plan.

2.      Complete a financial analysis with your IBC authorized advisor.

3.      Schedule an online or in-person appointment to review your IBC recommendations.  If the plan makes sense for you, start the underwriting process to implement. 

John A. Montoya

www.IBC.guru

JLM Wealth Strategies, Inc.

IBC® Authorized Practitioner

CA Life#0C42222

 

Baby Boomers Reveal Their Deepest Financial Regrets

Two impact statements from this article:

"Worse yet is that I am college educated but still had no financial knowledge."

"Then the market tanked and I had no safe haven for my hard earned money."

Guess what two things I focus on in my practice... Truth is simple.


http://yhoo.it/121aiOT

 

What Have I Done? Baby Boomers Reveal Their Deepest Financial Regrets

yhoo.it

Over 50, underfunded, and ill-prepared for retirement. Unfortunately, that’s an all-too-common scenario for the Baby Boomer generation – those born between 1946 and 1964 -- many of whom are still smarting

Protecting Yourself From Confiscation

Via Robert Mish, from Steven Saville's  http://www.speculative-investor.com

Protecting yourself against government confiscation

Government confiscation of wealth can take many forms. Here are some examples:

1) Taxes, duties and royalties

2) Nationalisation of assets

3) The forced exchange of one asset for another of lesser value, such as the compulsory exchange of gold for dollars in the US in 1933 and pension funds in some countries being forced to invest in government debt.

4) The arbitrary impositions of laws and regulations that reduce the values of investments

5) Capital controls that prevent money from being transferred to a more desirable location, thus ensuring that the money remains available to the government for future harvesting via taxation or forced investment in government debt.

6) Licenses and fines

7) Price controls

8) Inflation

Specific and detailed tactics for protecting yourself against government confiscation are outside the scope of the TSI newsletter and largely outside our expertise (our specific tactical knowledge is mostly limited to our personal experience and would not be relevant to the majority of our readers), but in general terms it boils down to internationalising yourself and your assets.

Internationalising your assets involves spreading your wealth over multiple political regions, such that no single government can take an action that jeopardises your financial well-being. To be a little more specific, it makes sense to spread assets/investments between North America (the US and Canada), Asia (mainly Singapore and Hong Kong), the Asia-Pacific region (Australia and New Zealand), and parts of non-euro Europe (e.g., Switzerland and the UK). Some countries in Central and South America (Mexico, Panama and Chile being three examples) could also make suitable homes for a portion of your capital. The extent to which you spread your wealth geographically will, of course, depend on how much wealth you have. The more wealth you have, the greater your need for international diversification.

Internationalising yourself involves having at least two official travel documents and is of greatest importance if you are a US citizen, the reason being that if you only have a US passport then internationalising your assets will be far more difficult than it should be. This is because the actions of the US government have transformed US passport-holders into pariahs from the perspective of most financial institutions outside the US.

Confiscation via inflation is the one form of government theft that you can't effectively protect yourself against by internationalising your assets, because all major currencies are being inflated aggressively. With there being widespread commitment to the wrongheaded belief that a strong currency is a liability, this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

There's No Point In Fixing A 401k Lemon (When There's Already A Better Alternative!)

I happened to read an article on Kiplinger.com today about overhauling the 401k.  I say "happened to" because it appeared on a friends Facebook timeline.  I wouldn't normally read mainstream drivel especially when coming from a Wall Street blowhard site like Kiplinger's but the title "Bold 401(k) Overhaul" caught my attention.  I knew I'd be disappointed and in that regard the article succeeded mightily.  The proposed ideas would only exacerbate the problem 401k's create in the first place. (By the way, I do offer a better alternative rather than just criticize the 401k to pieces.)  These problems are highlighted below by yours truly who felt compelled to reply to NickV's comment:


"Wow, so many negative comments on 401k's. I thank my lucky stars that my wife and I have them. We are middle class and at age 50, we have accumulated $2M so far. To all the people who think the game is rigged, good luck living on SS in your golden years."

My reply:

"I ran some numbers using a 401k calculator (on dinkytown.net) assuming you've contributed 20% of income starting at age 22 with a $70k salary increasing at 4%/yr. I also assumed your employer has been giving you a 50% match up to 6% of your contributions. You would need an annual (not average) rate of return 3.8% to reach $1m in your 401k after 28 years. Multiply that by 2 to equal $2m that you and your wife have accumulated. 

My point is that you've taken an absurd amount of market risk to earn a paltry 3.8% annual return after expenses. As you get older, you'll have to reduce your risk exposure even further which will lower your rate of return even further. You could have paid your income taxes upfront instead of postponing that tax bill for retirement and seen your after tax contributions achieve an internal rate of return closer to 5% without any market risk in a dividend paying whole life policy structured with at least 60% of premiums in Paid Up Additions. You would have also received lifetime death benefit protection for each of you, and no penalties or taxable consequences for using your money anytime along the way. 

People are steered toward 401k plans but they lock up your money, put it at risk, and force you to pay taxes on your distributions. Tell me how your 401k option is better than the plan I use that provides me with 100% use and control of my money, guaranteed growth, tax free use of my money including retirement income, protection for my family and I get it without any luck, skill, or guesswork needed with a 401k. 

The game is rigged Nick. You could have done a lot better without all the risk. Wall Street and Kiplinger's would hate to lose you as a client though which is probably why they'll keep feeding you the same lines about maxing 401k's, dollar cost averaging, buy term and invest the difference, you'll be in a lower tax bracket when you retire... all conventional wisdom that has burned millions of people who keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. By the way, you don't have $2m in your 401k. The IRS has probably around 25% or more claim on it assuming tax brackets don't rise (big assumption for a revenue starved government) and don't forget your state income taxes, too. I do sincerely wish you the best with your plan."

The goal of sharing my reply to NickV is to educate people about options since so many people believe a 401k plan is the only retirement plan available.  As an authorized advisor with Bank on Yourself, I can assure you there is at least one other solution you probably haven't heard of and no Wall Street advisor will ever share with you.

To learn more about how I help people move away from the roller coaster ride of a 401k retirement plan and teach them about Infinite Banking, please contact me at www.IBC.guru.

Thank you,

John Montoya

Taxes, Taxes & More Taxes

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid...

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
'Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'
I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!

GO AHEAD. . . BE AN AMERICAN!!!

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW

Taxation is Theft

Lew Rockwell posted a great article from Judge Napolitano.  You can find the full article here: http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano96.1.html

Everything he writes here is powerful and hits home with me and hopefully with you as well.  Here's my favorite part:

For 150 years, the federal government was run by user fees and sales of government land and assessments to the states for services rendered. It rejected the Hamiltonian view that the feds could take whatever they wanted, and it followed the Jeffersonian first principle that the only moral commercial exchanges are those that are fully voluntary.

This worked well until the progressives took over the government in the first decade of the 20th century. They persuaded enough Americans to cause their state legislatures to ratify the Sixteenth Amendment, which was designed to tax the rich and redistribute wealth. They promised the American public that the income tax would never exceed 3 percent of income and would only apply to the top 3 percent of earners. How wrong – or deceptive – they were.

Yet, the imposition of a federal income tax is more than just taking from those who work and earn and giving to those who don’t. And it is more than just a spigot to fill the federal trough. At its base, it is a terrifying presumption. It presumes that we don’t really own our property. It accepts the Marxist notion that the state owns all the property and the state permits us to keep and use whatever it needs us to have so we won’t riot in the streets. And then it steals and uses whatever it can politically get away with. Do you believe this?

There are only three ways to acquire wealth in a free society. The inheritance model occurs when someone gives you wealth. The economic model occurs when you trade a skill, a talent, an asset, knowledge, sweat, energy or creativity to a willing buyer. And the mafia model occurs when a guy with a gun says: "Give me your money or else." 

Which model does the government use? Why do we put up with this?

Rick Rule's Secret To Successful Resource Investing

"What's odd to me is that people elbow each other out of the way to crowd into a sector when the sector is expensive and frothy, and they leave in disgust when the sector evidences some value.

If you and I were walking one of the great shopping districts of the world... and on the left-hand side of the street there was a row of signs that said, "50% off," "70% off," "All goods marked down," "We got a business sale/moving away sale," and on the right-hand side of the street, there were little, discreet signs that said, "All goods marked up," "No discounts," "No sales," "No value to customers," of course we'd want to be walking the left side of the street.

Well, the left side of the street is what a bear market is. It's a bunch of goods on sale. And the idea that people avoid those sales and only pay attention to the market when goods are fully priced, is, I guess, one of the things that's caused me to be a success. Other people abdicate any chance they have to get ahead in this market. While I feel sorry for them, I'm delighted on my own behalf."

 If those aren't words of wisdom to hold on to, I'm not sure what would be. 

No Free Lunch

In the 1960s, Milton Friedman famously explained that "there's no such thing as a free lunch." If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical "multiplier effect" by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test.

You can do that voluntarily by sending a check to the US Treasury and that would be fine and acceptable because it's your choice (freedom) alone. Unfortunately, that's not how the system of taxation operates. Everyone is forced to pay taxes or face fines, penalties, or jail time. There is no liberty in being coerced to pay taxes. 

Tax payers have no clue where the money we pay goes. Most of the money collected in taxes goes to pay the interest on the national debt. 40 cents of dollar the government spends is financed just adding to the national debt. 

There are two types of taxes: what you pay by threat of law and what is stolen from you in the form of inflation. Most of us are aware of direct taxation but clueless about the other silent tax. Government programs are financed by a broke govt borrowing endless paper money backed by tax slaves and in the end it just makes everybody just a bit more poorer although they just don't realize why.

Eventually, the world will wake up and the way it's turning out, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world will see first what Americans are too distracted to see.  Governments around the world are broke and they are coming after the money you and I have saved.  Cyprus is the latest example and those that say it can't happen here are in denial.  It's been happening here since 1913.  The government here, in partnership with the Federal Reserve, just aren't as obvious about it.  

Learn the difference between a hard default and a soft default.  By all appearances we are headed towards the latter which is why the public is so unaware.  On the surface, things seem fine but still waters run deep.

Advice from a Customer

Forwarded from Mish International:

well, boys and girls, Its not looking good for the home team.

other than--

 central banks are buying the most gold hand over fist in decades.

Russian and China buying gold by the ton. literally.  800 tons for the Chinese in 2012, as example.

the Fed creating 85 billion a month in new monies. officially.  the real number is unknown. or where the money is going. (ahem-euro banks).  for example if you recall in 2008, officially, the Fed gave the banks 850 billion. later we find out the real number was closer to 8 trillion. some say 15 trillion. see here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/fed-gave-banks-trillions-in-bailout-bloomberg-reports/

no major bankster has gone to jail for crimes that have bankrupted the nation. or for money laundering for "terrorists" or drug cartels.  or for stealing money from allocated accounts.  ahem.... MFglobal.  I interpret this to mean that the banks are large and in charge, and will continue to do what is  best for the banksters.  regardless of the cost to the country. 

the currency wars are now in progress.....  see japan, for example. in its ongoing devaluation of the yen.

the monetary base in the US  has grown exponentially over the last few years. only the lack of velocity of money has kept inflation from showing its ugly head.

unless you count the rise in the cost of food, energy, and medical care. but if you can survive on cheaper computers alone, then there is no inflation.  (an let us not even discuss the manipulation of the CPI numbers.)

the Fed is locked into ever increasing money creation.  the paper currency  loses value in ever increasing percentages.

thus the fundamentals in favor of bullion  have not changed to any degree that I can see. 

in fact the case for precious metals as wealth storage without counterparty risk is stronger than ever.

thus this downside blow in the precious metals makes no sense in that light.

in the light that the west does not want a hyperbolic rise in the price of gold   and......

the East wants to buy gold at the lowest price.....................then this price bombing makes perfect sense.  (the Chinese jamming the market lower, no, say it aint so, joe)

however,  as the great Lord Keynes once said, markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

all that said, I would use this price bombing as an opportunity  to buy more bullion.

Al.

How Iceland Beat The Bankers

Justice - Icelandic Style

Eliminating Banker-Originated Fraud ─ Permanently

Creating a Permanent Deterrent for White Collar Criminals aka Banksters

Unknown Author

 

Introduction

In American journalism, very little serious investigative reporting occurs. It is hard enough to understand a complex news story from start to finish, let alone learn significant lessons from these stories, then apply the lessons locally. However, thanks to the Internet, anyone who desires to gain a broader knowledge and understanding of events within the US or globally can easily do so.

Such is the case with the amazing story of Iceland and how this little country defeated banker fraud and tax-payer funded bailouts of private debts incurred by private parties. This story has been under-reported and certainly not cohesively reported, by mainstream US media. Yet, it is very instructive for learning how a nation can defeat the bankers who are trying to saddle taxpayers with debts that are their problem - not the people's problem.

Before telling the story, it's instructive to look at the population of Iceland, so as to understand how this small nation came together to defeat banker-bailout fraud. Here are a few stats on Iceland:

• Population is approximately 320,000 - A population small enough to come together en masse to bring about the change they desire.

• Literacy rates of 99% - Which makes it very difficult for bankers and the Icelandic government to dupe their own citizens into accepting taxes that are designed to pay off private, banker-generated debts.

An Icelandic university publication about its own country it states:
"Iceland possesses a literacy rate of 99%, has an extensive welfare system, low unemployment (2.1% is the 2005 estimate), and a remarkably even distribution of income. As of 2001 there were 20 Internet service providers and, in 2005, 258,000 Icelanders were Internet users. As of 2003, 71.4% of the labor force was engaged in services, 18.3% in industry, and 10.3% in agriculture (CIA Factbook, 2006). Given a population of about 300,000, Iceland is reputed to have the highest Internet penetration in the world (86%)… "From the above statistics, one can easily observe that Icelanders are a very well educated and thinking population. Therefore, it is quite difficult to con them, especially given the proliferation of Internet use and easy access to all types of information.

The Banker Backstory:

If you scan mainstream news publications, it is difficult to piece together how, specifically and sequentially, the events in Iceland played out. Therefore, it would be hard for Americans to look to the Iceland story as a template for how to do the same here in the United States.

Nonetheless, a radio interview with an Icelandic member of Parliament in 2011 told the story in such a way that other nations could learn from Iceland's experience and - perhaps - use its experience as a template to defeat banker bailouts around the world.

Her name is Birgitta Jónsdóttir, and these are the key events she witnessed: In the 2003 timeframe, Iceland "privatized" its banks, meaning the banks were practically given away to friends of the government. From 2003 - 2008, the banks proceeded to make a large amount of bad loans.

By October 2008, three large Icelandic banks were experiencing major problems. The three banks were: Kaupthing (who offered Kaupthing Edge), Glitnir and Landsbanki (who offered an online savings account called Icesave). Kaupthing Edge and Icesave offered high interest (too good to be true?) accounts that  attracted both Dutch and British savers. This factor, among others, gave the British and Dutch governments stakes in the outcome of the Icelandic banking "crisis."

In the midst of the financial crisis, there were runs on these banks, and they became insolvent, for all intents and purposes. Additionally, they were saddled with bad loans due to their own mismanagement. At this point in time, the Icelandic government was considering a bank bailout, despite the fact that these three banks' problems were due to their own bad management, and were not legal obligations of the Icelandic people. However, the people of Iceland were not easily duped into paying for a banker bailout and were resisting. Gordon Brown, prime minister of the UK at that time and the UK Finance Minister (Alistair Darling) designated Iceland as a terrorist state employing a particular UK law, putting this small nation in the same diplomatic category as North Korea and Zimbabwe. This designation was insane, as Iceland's policemen don't carry guns and the country does not have its own military! Through this terrorist designation, all lines of credit were withdrawn from Iceland, and they were at risk of both food and medicine shortages. Clearly, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were representing the banks' interests, demonstrating how thoroughly banks can control elected governments that should be representing the interests of the people. (Was Iceland meant to be the example to the world that if anyone doesn't immediately and completely comply with banker demands that a nation will be designated as "terrorists" and be cut off from the world economy? Hmmm….)

The Icelandic people began demonstrating to achieve a referendum so the people could determine whether or not the taxpayers should foot the bill for the bankers' private financial problems. Birgitta Jónsdóttir (who was not in Parliament at this time) and a few others had taken to the streets. They protested 24 hours / day in front of the Icelandic capital. (This was in the winter when there are very few hours of daylight with terribly cold winter weather.) Soon, thousands of others joined them. They threw rocks at the capital and banged pots and pans all day and all night. The government finally relented after the protesters burned down a Christmas tree that is annually gifted to Iceland from Norway.

The police had run out of mace and were starting to use tear gas on its own people. At that point, the police and the government knew they could not resist the protesters any longer. Ultimately, 60,000 people (almost 20% of Icelanders) signed a petition to cause the government to hold a referendum. In the end, 63% of the population voted in the referendum and, of that group, 93% voted against bailing out the bankers. There would be no bailout.

In the meanwhile and after she had been elected to Parliament, Birgitta Jónsdóttir was anonymously provided with documents from the US embassy, who had obtained them from WikiLeaks. The documents demonstrated that both the British and the US Treasury were desperately trying to prevent the Icelandic referendum from taking place. Additionally, a little known group called the Paris Club was also trying to prevent the referendum. The documents showed that the US and British governments were afraid that citizens of Europe would learn from Iceland's experience and also demand referendums, and reject bailouts.

Criminal Prosecutions and Jail Time:
In early 2009, the Icelandic government resigned and a new one was elected.3 The new government has been investigating the perpetrators of the banking collapse and bringing charges against them.

For example, Bloomberg has reported:
Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges. Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues. Imagine that - solitary confinement for a banker!!!

Another news website, Infowars.com, reported that:
Iceland did something unthinkable in the United States – it went after the banksters and their minions. In early March, Sigurdur Einarsson, former chairman of the defunct Icelandic bank Kaupthing, was arrested in  London. The Special Prosecutor’s Office in Reykjavik ordered the police to raid the homes of other bank principals. Ivar Gundjonson of Iceland’s failed Landsbanki bank was also arrested.

So, with serious criminal prosecutions of many of the perpetrators of the banking crisis, a deterrent has been created that will cause any future bankers to think twice before looting their own banks, then demanding the Icelandic people bail them out.

Another step the government of Iceland took was to forgive all debts on homes where the debt against the home was above 110% of its value. So, as opposed to forcing Icelandic citizens to bailout the banks, the banks were forced to forgive loans that never should have been made in the first place. The total amount of loans forgiven so far is approximately $1.6 billion - a bailout for the people! Further, the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled that loans that were indexed to various currency exchange rates were illegal,4 so the borrower is no longer obligated to make additional payments due to various currency fluctuations impacting their total obligation to the banks. In other word, not only did the citizens take steps to ensure the banks weren't bailed out, they actually ensured that the people were bailed out of illegal loans that never should have been made to them!

Last, the people of Iceland took one final step to ensure a future banking crisis could be averted, the Icelandic people sought to change their constitution. In October 2012, a referendum was held where the voters agreed that certain constitutional changes be made. Ultimately, the Parliament must act on the issued voted upon, but it seems the political will is present to put in place the changes recommended by the people.

It is easy to see the Icelandic people mean business, and will not mortgage theirs and their children's future by saddling themselves with debt they have no legal or moral obligation to assume.

Lessons Learned:

Stealing is stealing: Any way you shake it, stealing is stealing. It doesn't matter if a bank is robbed by someone holding a gun, or if it's robbed by the very people running the bank. As William Black entitled his book, "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One."7 The bankers of Iceland robbed the banks they controlled by rendering them insolvent, but they didn't get away with it. Some of them are even doing time in solitary! Further, to tax citizens - at "gunpoint" - to pay for the private obligations between two contracting parties is a type of theft. Just because the government makes it "law," that doesn't mean citizens are morally or in any way legally obligated to cover the losses of out-of-control business men disguised as respectable bankers.

In the US, we are lulled into a sense of powerlessness that Washington is too big and too far away to influence. We think, who are we to try to change anything when we have no power compared to special interests, such as the banking lobby. However, it is important to remember that the only way change ever occurs is for small, committed minorities to get together and cause change to happen. In the Revolutionary time period, it is estimated only 10% or less of colonists wanted to gain independence from Britain.8 Despite being outgunned and outnumbered, the American colonies won that war, thanks to a small, committed minority.

It is the same today. If enough Americans came together and demanded that both state governments and the federal government stop pandering to special interests and actually uphold the Constitution, our representatives would finally listen. The problem is, we feel too disempowered or too apathetic to actually flex our political muscles to make it happen. When we have finally had enough, change for the better can and will finally come.

Chicken Little - the Sky Wasn't Falling Down: One of the key ploys of bankers demanding bailouts is that the sky will fall down if the taxpayer doesn't immediately agree to the egregious bailout terms being demanded.

When Iceland hesitated, and then refused, to bail out the bankers, the usual threats were heard. Bankers threatened to not loan to the country for at least 10 years. Then it dropped to five years. Then it dropped to sometime in the near future.3,9 Supposedly their country was going to go through horrible economic times by NOT bailing out the bankers. Instead, they have experienced healthy growth that exceeds the rest of Europe. Even the IMF has taken note of this "miracle"! It's amazing what kind of "miracles" can occur when those responsible for the problems have to solve it themselves, and not "socialize" their problems to the taxpayers.

It's easy to see why the US and the UK were so worried, as revealed by the WikiLeaks document. They don't want the average taxpayer figuring out that the Chicken Little Sky Is Falling Down routine is a lie. They don't want US citizens figuring out that Too Big to Fail is also a lie. The banksters want to keep on duping the American taxpayer into thinking we have to pay for their egregiously bad (criminal?) business decisions.

The story of Iceland is an excellent lesson for the US and all the other countries in the world that are held hostage by bankers who are too irresponsible to handle the fallout of their own messes. By now, US bankers have learned that there won't be any criminal prosecutions; there won't be any shameful "perp walks" in front of TV cameras; and there won't be any long-term jail sentences, let alone solitary confinement. For the criminally-minded, it seems that banking is a viable and profitable career choice, especially here in America. With this in mind, we give special thanks to the SEC and FBI for their non-prosecutions of bank executives, because without them, the next banking crisis in America won't have been possible.10 We don't know how it will happen, but we can probably all agree that it's not a question of if but when.








Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland#Demographics
2. http://www.si.is/media/upplysingataekni/IcelandOutsourcingpaper_DRAFT.pdf
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wca0-2HGu-I - This is a four part interview where Birgitta
Jonsdottir provides the sequence of events in Iceland.
4. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/icelandic-anger-brings-record-debt-relief-in-bestcrisis-recovery-story.html
5. http://www.infowars.com/iceland-rejects-bankstershakedown/?q=NfCHglPjwdYhPT8tBbI6uSk36+xxOiiWw419VkXZwQ==
6. http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/6096-icelandic-voters-approveconstitutional-changes
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black
8. Rebels & Redcoats by Hugh Bicheno, Harper Collins 2003
9. http://www.infowars.com/top-economists-iceland-did-it-right-and-everyone-else-is-doing-itwrong/
10. See Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone, "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216




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