I’m Moving to Iceland

I listened to a conversation my father had with a banking representative over an issue that was caused because the frontline banking employees were either hopelessly incompetent, or apathetic corporate drones that show up just to collect a paycheck.

My old man is holding a piece of property that has depreciated 50% from the point when it was acquired prior to the housing bubble implosion that resulted from systemic fraud. Mortgage brokers, developers, appraisers, bankers, title agencies and real estate brokers were all trying to make as much as they could as quick as they could in the late 90’s to early 2000’s from the real estate market, that was created by the irresponsibly prolonged under-inflated interest rate. The fundamentals by which real estate is traditionally governed (supply and true demand), as well as ethics and morality were all shelved; an entire industry is guilty of criminal negligence. We consumers must assume responsibility for our part in this fiasco that resulted from the contribution of our greed. If we didn’t get so greedy one of two things would have occurred:

Certain developers and amateurs, who tried to make a quick buck, would have gone bankrupt by adding supply to an oversaturated market in which there was no true demand, and the banks would be holding significantly less vacant overvalued real estate in their portfolios.
We wouldn’t have had a real estate bubble or be suffering from a depression that eclipses that of the 1920’s.

Unfortunately ignorant customers succumbed to dollar signs that were dangled in front of them based on misleading information from industry professionals, which resulted in artificially inflated real estate values. These artificial real estate values fueled the cycle of greed and the problem exploded exponential. Besides the professionals, whom should haven been held criminally negligent, and the people whom deserve to lose every dollar they had for speculating, countless others became collateral damage of the bubble bursting.

So in its infinite wisdom the United States Government decided to bailout all of the criminal negligent parties, and did absolutely nothing of significance to hold them accountable for causing a global financial meltdown. Those same greedy parasites are free to move on to their next scheme that will be designed to enrich themselves at the expense of society. This is the way things have been going for decades. At this point I feel that I should remind you of the definition of insanity, or at least one definition of insanity.

So I think I’m moving to Iceland as soon as it is fiscally possible where at the very least it appears they are willing to stop the insanity and try something new.

 

 

 © Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.