Iceland's economic gangsters

Thorvaldur Gylfason, writing on VoxEU, helps us understand what happened in Iceland:

• Two Icelandic brothers who produced TV dinners for export became bank shareholders, and went on to buy themselves a yacht that used to belong to Giorgio Armani.

• Another bank owner bought himself a penthouse in Manhattan, but – this is actually in the SIC report – the bank “forgot” to ask for collateral.

• At a small dinner party for favoured bank clients on the Riviera, where Tina Turner stood for the music, the main course was sprinkled with – you couldn’t possibly have guessed this one – gold flakes.

• And then there was the dinner party in Reykjavik where singer George Michael had been scheduled to land on the glass roof in a roaring helicopter, but to the great embarrassment of the bank’s director of entertainment the plan fell through.

• One of the bank owners, the afore-mentioned Mr. Guðmundsson, declared bankruptcy in 2009 to the tune of $750 million, of which $500 million is owed to the bank he owned and directed. Not even Texas has seen a personal bankruptcy of such proportions.