Poor folks. They thought they were doing so well, lots of luxury shops, euro-lounges, high-living, and then BOOM, their currency craters, they lose their life's savings, their banks fail, their companies and jobs go away.
Iceland. Not some banana republic. Iceland.
Amazing. And now it feels like it can happen anywhere. To anyone. At anytime. When you least expect it.
Be prepared.
I might have to pop on up there to see it for myself. Anyone ever been?
October 09, 2008
Here's the latest on IcelandPANIC
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Oh, one more thing. There's about 300,000 unlucky stiffs in the UK who had savings at an online iceland bank. And that bank went bust and now they can't get their money.
Here's the latest:
According to UK’s prime minster Gordon Brown in an Interview at the BBC tonight “The Icelandic banks have not only failed the people of Iceland also the people of England and we will not tolerate that.”
He kept on saying that “Billions of pounds of locked in savings accounts of Icelandic banks like Landsbanki and Kaupthing and what the Icelandic government is doing is against the law”
According to Prime Minister Geir Haarde this is not the case and Iceland would not tolerate being placed in the same category as terrorists and told reporters at a press meeting. “We have talked to Alistair Darling and representatives from both governments will meet over the weekend and take on this growing problem”
http://www.icenews.is/
What else can Iceland do? Their economy is on the brink.
Hopefully some of them owned some gold!
They can't do anything. This is why you have bank regulators. They can take you down.
They'll likely default on their debts, their currency will be devalued 90%+, their people will lose their investments and their savings, their companies will fail.
Like Russia when it defaulted, or Argentina. It's happened time and time again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999-2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_financial_crisis
Hopefully some of them owned some gold!
Sounds a lot like what Shciff has been saying will happen here. Oh wait, it could never happen here because our government won't let it.
One of my bad financial blunders was investing in Iceland. Out of $20K, I lost $7K. For all my great advances, I have a few crap decisions that have wiped out half of my gains.
Thanks for the video, it shows that Iceland isn't going to recover so I won't think to try them ever again.
Be Patriotic: Don’t Vote
A good article that explains that the Founding Fathers established the USA as a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC designed to restrain warring factions (ie DEMOCRACY) and restrain the government.
What do we have now? An ever expanding, overbearing democratic government that is the cause of 99% of the problems in the US and problems around the world too.
Whether you agree with you like big government or not the truth is that America is no longer America. It no longer stands for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, individual liberty, free markets and the rule of law.
It's now a nation ruled by men not law. Men with empty slogans that pander to the elite and run roughshod over everything it originally meant to be American.
What's saddest of all is that most American's don't even know what it means to be American even though they are soooo proud to be American. They think it's all about football, apple pie and Elvis.
So what happens when Iceland does it's best impression of Argentina except everyone is stuck on an island this time?
Lots of hot women there. I'm seeing the law of unintended consequences spurring an interesting tourist industry there...
What bugged me about these 300,000 UK savers who can't get their money out of that Iceland bank - is that I wrote this on October 1st:
So, what would you do if the banks were ordered closed, and you had no access to your cash? Well, in 1933, that happened. And it can happen again.
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2008/10/roosevelt-on-banking-weve-been-down.html
Spread your money around folks, different banks, different countries if you can. Have some ready cash. Assume the worst can happen, and if it doesn't at least you were well prepared.
Time to fish and live of the geothermal.
I've been to Reykjavik.
Everyone's blond. I didn't stay, I just had a long layover.
Hot springs are supposed to be great. Icelantic wool is the warmest fabric in the world. Buy a blanket.
I believe the same thing can happen here and now I'm going to find out about foreign bank accounts. Perhaps Switzerland?
“The Icelandic banks have not only failed the people of Iceland also the people of England and we will not tolerate that.”
-------------------
Will England invade Iceland?
Coming soon to a theater near you: Falklands II!
I've been, Feb. 2006. I figured something had to give when two orders of fish and chips at a snack bar cost the equivalent of US$50. But a beautiful country.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/10/8/213852/964
I have wrote diaries before how the Neocons are responsible for the housing bubble and thus the current financial crisis. What's happening to Iceland is just more proof that the Neocons are behind the current financial crisis.
From the article above, "As regular Icelanders begin to blame the government and market regulators, Haarde said the banks had been "victims of external circumstances."
Richard Portes of the London Business School agreed, noting the banks were well-capitalized and had not bought any of the toxic debt that has brought down banks elsewhere."
In other words Icelanders were smart enough not to get involved in the time bomb mortgages that the Neocons were selling all over the world, yet they are almost bankrupt. Yes, Iceland is the victim of "external circumstances", namely a Neocon conspiracy against them. Why did the Neocons do it? Maybe because Iceland shows that being a social democracy is the only way to produce a high standard of living for everyone. After all this is why Iceland has the number 1 HDI (Human Development Index) rating and why the UN rated Iceland as the best place in the world to live. Another reason is that the Neocons are using Iceland to take down the rest of Europe.
Only the US should be suffering problems due to the housing bubble. The fact that anything is happening anywhere else in particular Europe is more proof (as if we needed more) that this housing bubble/financial crisis is a Neocon conspiracy aimed at destroying social democratic nations.
government betrayed them...they betray government? living off the geothermal and fish .............?
Is anyone else going to Iceland to pick at the bones? I'm planning a trip there to check real estate and other sectors. Pennies on the dollar baby! Iceland's currency is at par with Zimbabwe's.
Next place to crash and burn, Argentina. You heard here first.
Lots of hot women there. I'm seeing the law of unintended consequences spurring an interesting tourist industry there...
Indeed. I dated a hot blondie from Iceland for a while. Nice people, too.
Everyone in Iceland is not blond. Many are, but Icelandic genetics are not the same as the other Scandinavian countries due to unique settlement patterns.
The Icelanders are, in my experience, a wonderful people. This crisis is a tragedy for one of Europe's most progressive, promising nations. If you are into the outdoors, hiking, and so on, it is a great place for summer tourism - amazing landscape. Plus, it is very hospitable to all of us ignorant monolingual Americans, since a large portion of Icelanders speak passable, and often fluent, English.
Incidentally, Iceland and the UK have had conflicts previously, over cod fishing rights.
I haven't been but I'd gotta believe most people in Iceland are just regular folks, trying to raise a family and make a living.
And then their nation got hijacked by incompetent corrupted politicians, and an out of control club of bankers, and they destroyed the nation.
You know, kind of like the United States.
My experience with Icelanders has been quite different. I have found them cold, indifferent, self-centered. I'm not surprised at what they're doing to the British. But Iceland will recover. They have natural resources. They are educated. So, after a few months, they'll be back to acting smug. Asumming that is, if by then they have pried off their necks the pasty-white hands of invading angry British depositors.
Falkland Islands anyone?
Don't you worry REAL blond hotties from Iceland, T-Bone is coming with a wallet full of cash and love to give.
Investing in iceland for the long term:
Before you do, look at this.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm
Same goes for most of Europe and Ireland.
Iceland is likely the first of many governments to collapse in this meltdown. If America manages to squeak by on this one I give it a decade before we default on our debt payments. Then it's downhill fast.
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