Finally, consider this bonus to the Icelandic experience of not bailing their banks. After initially falling quite rapidly, real wages have been rising at a brisk pace. This has helped reverse the trend of growing inequality witnessed between 1995 and 2007, when the after-tax Gini coefficient rose from 0.21 to 0.43, mostly because of the high incomes of top earners—a phenomenon seen in all highly financialized societies. By 2010, when capital income had collapsed and the tax code was reformed, the Gini coefficient was pushed back down to 0.245.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 647