October 07, 2008

Looks like I'll have to start "IcelandPANIC" soon. Folks, you can't make this stuff up.


Iceland.

How the hell did Iceland get so tied up in this mess

Iceland.

Unreal.


REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Iceland halted trading in the shares of six of its major banks and put 100 percent guarantees on savers' deposits Monday as the world financial crisis engulfed the tiny island nation.

Iceland is under severe pressure to draw up a plan to cope with economic turmoil.

Iceland is particularly exposed to the global credit squeeze because of the massive size of its banking sector, which has benefited from an economic boom in recent years, growing to dwarf the rest of the economy with assets at nine times the annual gross domestic product of €14 billion ($19 billion).

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the Russian government just loaned 4 billion euros to Iceland to help bailout banks...

PJ

Anonymous said...

Iceland had it's throat cut by Wall Street. This has happened before.

The Russians are helping them now. The question
is , now that Iceland is no longer occupied by US troops , will this VERY important strategic location fall into Putin's hands?

Let's hope not.

Attacks on the country’s Reykjavik-based banks “give off an unpleasant odor of unscrupulous dealers who have decided to make a last stab at breaking down the Icelandic financial system,'’ Oddsson said at the central bank’s annual meeting in Reykjavik. “They will not get away with it.'’

One interesting point: it appears that the Icelandic authorities particularly suspect Bear Stearns.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/isrey

Anonymous said...

Where the hell is Iceland? Is that some Afician Country?

Anonymous said...

There seems to be a unique pattern of financial distress among the 'Coalition of the Willing' countries.

There also seems to be a common factor in this distres:

Goldman Sachs Group

Coincidence?

Cabal

Anonymous said...

Cos it's, like, all connected, ya know?

foxwoodlief said...

And it was only America that drank the Kool aid.

The Euro is two years behind us which means we are at least two years ahead of getting out of this mess.

Home prices in Phoenix are not at a price that 65% can afford vs the 27% during the frenzy. I'm sure that number is being reached in Florida and other markets, and of course those markets that weren't involved in the hyper run up in price and were always affordable.

People want to buy. Most of the people I work with that don't own homes are buying. Why? Because they are not buying an investment but a place to live and they have to pay to live somewhere and now they can buy for the same as rent.

Anonymous said...

Time to start calling this blog...

CountryPANIC

Where countries can crash like the behemoth bloated banks of Wally St.

David said...

Not a surprise. Friend was there over the summer, reported that the dirty secret of Iceland was that the citizens there all worked one job during the day, and then shamefacedly went to work at another job at night, tending bar or cleaning fish.

They were seduced by the visions coming at them from their TVs, selling them this "MTV Cribs" version of reality. So they all went crazy overspending on crapola, and then had to get 2nd jobs to try to pay back the debt.

The party is most definitely over. For Iceland, and Europe, the realization is starting to dawn that the bills they've racked up - to far less fanfare and disapproval than here in the U.S. - are all coming due...

Anonymous said...

I made a lot of money out of Iceland. Borrow from Japan at 1%, Lend to Iceland @ 11%, lever-up and repeat.

Anonymous said...

Maybe JP Morgan can buy out the entire country for pennies on the dollar.

Anonymous said...

Iceland government just nationalized its largest bank. I think the country is technically bankrupt. Some say the banking system has debts 21 times larger than the countrys economy...

PJ