Iceland can be viewed as a successful example of a country that is breaking away from global financial capitalism, a system designed to drive countries forever into debt, Rodney Shakespeare, Professor of Binary Economics told RT.
RT:Do you share this optimism about Iceland's
financial recovery?
Rodney Shakespeare: Iceland is quite right to make an
upright challenge to the global financial system. Unless you say
that you are going to throw it out the window, they will always
succeed in creating money out of nothing, lending to you with
administration cost and interest, lending it for anything except
the real economy. Lending it for anything except the spreading of
the real economy and putting you into debt. And the debt becomes
repayable.
You must rely on your own national bank for your own uses, for
your own real economy and for the spreading of it. And if you
don’t do that, you’ll be trapped in debt in the same way that ….
well, you’ve got Greece, you’ve got Iceland, you’ve got every
country in the world trapped in increasing debt and all that
happens is that they increase the levels of the debt and
smash the populations down.
We need a revolt against this global financial system and in its
own way Iceland is setting a reasonable example.
RT:But at a cost? It’s not as good as it sounds –
inflation skyrocketed, while the local currency became much
weaker. Is it really as good as it sounds?
RS: The bottom line is what you do with the financial
system which acts on the real economy which actually creates
things and services. Finance capitalism does nothing of this
sort. It is essentially a theory and a device which succeeds in
putting debt on the population and sucking the debt up to that
one percent elite.
What really matters is whether in fact the economy has got to
work efficiently which in fact involves everybody in the society.
Global finance capitalism does not do that. It is collapsing on
the ever-increasing weight of debt which is made worse of course
by the enforced austerity.
Global finance capitalism is a fraud and its time is up. And it
is also time that we recognize that and start to go for a new
system.
RT:Back in April, Icelanders voted out the government
responsible for the post-crisis recovery, returning the parties
responsible for the pre-Crisis boom - Why is that?
RS: That is because people yet do not have a clear
understanding of what is at fault, which is the center of all
this and what is the way forward. The thing you have to
understand is that countries have to come back to their own
national bank and have nothing to do with the IMF or the World
Bank, and certainly not to borrow from foreign creditors who are
only out to put them into debt.
They go on repaying the principle of a loan forever more, over,
and over, and over again. People have to go to a new paradigm of
thinking and if they don’t, they will end up being crashed
forever more.
RT:If Iceland's doing so well - why is there no
foreign appetite to invest in its economy?
RS: I have to disagree that foreign investment is
important. You use your own national bank for your own
investment. If you have to buy technical information and
expertise, that is another matter. But you must never keep
borrowing from abroad, because ultimately that is going to be the
source of your weakness.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.