The Iceland government is paying its citizens from the proceeds of the nationalization of the second largest bank in the wake of its tough reaction to corruption in the banking sector. The Arctic nation jailed its crooked bankers after the Global Financial Crisis instead of bailing them out. It is now distributing the windfall to the citizens as it continues to clean up the banking sector.
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Because Icelanders took control of their government, they effectively own the banks. Iceland remains the only European nation to recover fully from the 2008 crisis. Iceland even managed to pay its outstanding debt to the IMF in full — in advance of the due date. Meanwhile, US banking criminals were rewarded for their fraud and market manipulation with an enormous bailout at the taxpayer’s expense.