When it comes to the New Normal, there are just two precedents: complacent and doomed debt slaves, such as Greece, which continues to voluntarily hand over any and all of its real assets to the vampiric banking oligarchy in exchange for simply being the member of a doomed club, while trembling at constant threats of fire and brimstone if it dares to split away from its monetary parasites (and where unemployment rises by 3% in one quarter), or the rare success story such as Iceland, which showed the bankers a middle finger, took the red pill and disconnected from the globalization matrix. And while even Bloomberg [9]recently extolled the virtues of the Iceland "case", which will likely be solitary until the entire ponzi scheme comes crashing down, we are heartened when we observe all incremental milestones of further economic and financial success by the one country that dared to call the banker bluff, and won. Such as this press release [10]from the IMF.
Iceland to Repay Early Some Outstanding Obligations to the IMF
Press Release No.12/84
March 15, 2012
Iceland announced today that it repaid, ahead of schedule, obligations to the IMF amounting to some SDR 288.8 million (US$ 443.4 million). The payment was made on March 12.
The early repayment is about one fifth of the SDR 1.4 billion (US$2.15 billion) that Iceland borrowed from the IMF under its Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) (see Press Release 08/296). The amounts repaid early are the obligations falling due in 2013 under the original repayment schedule.
Together with a scheduled payment made in February 2012, this early repayment will reduce Iceland’s outstanding obligation to the IMF to SDR 1.041 billion (about US$1.60 billion). This outstanding balance is projected to be repaid during 2012-16.
After this early repayment, and taking into account a similar early repayment of Iceland’s Nordic loans, reserve adequacy—as measured by the ratio of reserves-to-short term debt—will remain above the standard benchmark of 100 percent.
Congratulations Iceland. We can only hope even one other country had the testicular fortitude to follow in your footsteps and realize that all hollow threats of mutual assured destruction if one dares to turn their back on the banking supercabal, are just that. Hollow.