Icelanders Overwhelmingly Defeat Extortion Deal

And by overwhelmingly, I mean that the vote against the referendum was 93.2 percent, with about 1% of the votes being spoiled.

As Dean Baker so profoundly notes, the entire bailout is predicated on the idea that bankers can, and should, be allowed to gamble and that the rest of us should be left on the hook:

It should also point out how the Iceland makes a mockery of anyone who claims to support leaving financial activities to the market. In almost all cases, actors in financial markets assume that governments will stand behind banks at the end of the day. Therefore when they say want the government to leave things to the market they are lying. They just want to be able to take risks with taxpayers money, without being fettered by regulations limiting the extent of these risks. In short, the finance boys want a free lunch, not a free market.

In the case of Iceland, this hook is about about €13,000 for every man, woman child on the small island.

We need our bankers, and stockbrokers to be stupid and dull again, because these smart guys are killing us.