The IMF Destroys Iceland and Latvia

For the past decade Iceland has been a kind of controlled experiment, an extreme test case of neoliberal free-market ideology. ... Is there a limit, a point at which government will draw a line against taking on public responsibility for private debts beyond any reasonable capacity to pay without drastically slashing public spending on education, health care and other basic services? ...

The European Union and International Monetary Fund have told them to replace private debts with public obligations, and to pay by raising taxes, slashing public spending and obliging citizens to deplete their savings. Resentment is growing not only toward those who ran up these debts -- Iceland's bankrupt Kaupthing and Landsbanki with its Icesave accounts, and heavily debt-leveraged property owners and privatizers in the Baltics and Central Europe -- but also toward the neoliberal foreign advisors and creditors who pressured these governments to sell off the banks and public infrastructure to insiders.'

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Latvia – The Shame of Europe! Russian Children Taken From Parents to be Re-educated by the State

One of the Latvian government’s main priorities is the complete assimilation of the Russian minority, which constitutes almost half of the population. To achieve this goal they have resorted to every trick in the book: from all sorts of promises to blatant discrimination. But, despite all the tricks, the Russian do not want to become Letts.

But Latvian officials do not give up, and continue to seek new ways to naturalize “the occupiers”. They have resorted to the most extreme and devious methods, for example, in the city of Daugavpils they use the juvenile court system to place Russian children into State care for the flimsiest of reasons.

In countries where this system already operates, parents not only cease to be the childs legal guardians, in many cases the child is no longer allowed to live with their natural parents.'

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Latvian Firm Accepts Souls as Guarantee for Loans

A financial company in Latvia is offering residents loans secured by nothing but their immortal soul.

Riga-based firm, named Kontora, does not require credit history record or proof of employment. It grants loans of 50 to 500 Latvian lats ($100 to $1,000) to any adult after he or she signs the a very short agreement.

According to the agreement, the only security required of the borrower is their immortal soul, which they are asked to confirm as their previously unmortgaged property.

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