Fiduciary responsibility: remember that? I didn’t think so. Nobody around here does either. But Iceland does, and it has just provided the rest of us with a brisk reminder that the people we entrust to be public stewards have a responsibility to be, you know, public stewards.
The Financial Times (registration req’d) reports today that Geir Haarde, former prime minster of Iceland, has been found guilty of negligence in his handling of the economic crisis that engulfed the U.S. and most of Europe late in 2008. (Perhaps I should say, “began to engulf”: we aren’t out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.)
Mr. Haarde was cleared of other charges — eating dogs was not, apparently among them — and he faces no jail time or other punishment. Still, it is good to know that the habit of holding public servants (how quaint that phrase sounds in the age of the Imperial Motorcade) responsible for their actions has not, not quite, passed out of existence.
Barack Obama has added more than $7 trillion to the federal deficit since he took office. That’s 7,000,000,000,000. How’s that for negligence — or maybe something far worse? Is it time to think about the Icelandic Option?
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