These "Savers" are not large banks but are Dutch and English people.

The Icelandic bank Landsbankinn operated in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom under the name of Icesave. People who had their savings there were guaranteed to get 20.000EUR by the Icelandic government in case the bank would collapse.

The bank did collapse and the Dutch and Brittish government loaned Iceland the money needed to repay that 20.000EUR. And basically, now the Icelandic population and the president refuse to pay the bill.

the savers have already been paid by the british and holland authorities. the bank operating in britain/holland did not have any icelandic government guarantee - it was guaranteed by the Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund which is a private institution and is not guaranteed by government under any regulation.

what happened yesterday wasn't refusal to pay anything - it was a veto of a particular law discussing the terms of the deal. iceland will still honor all obligations - the foreign media has been horribly misinformed for the most part which is mostly due to weak PR by our government.

do you really think the 4bn were mostly private savings, from private citizens in a foreign bank?

as far as i am informed the 4bn are mostly obligations caused by failing CDS

Yes, I'm quite sure those are mostly citizen's savings. The Icesave bank operating here in the Netherlands had a good interest rate. So a massive amount of people had put their savings there.

65000 account holders were guaranteed 20K, which already makes for 1,3 billion. I'm not saying all those account holders were private citizens as it seems that a lot of local governments and companies here also put their savings at Icesave, but that doesn't really change anything.

EDIT: I'm currently reading some documents stating that the Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund only repays citizens and small companies.

well we had a lot of interviews from people who had invested anything from £2-50k of savings, even more for some. they saw the 4-5% offered here and the 7-8%offered there (or whatever the %'s are) and saw it as an equivalently safe option but with a larger return (just how one bank will offer a better rate than another in the same country)

did IMF give them the cash already? if not then refuse to loan them money and sever all economic ties with those icelandic terrorists until their economy becomes like zimbabwae's...not as if they have any decent trade on offer that couldnt come from a different country

lol ..?

don't mind him, dird is the ESR mascot and we love it when he gets angry :)

hehe, duly noted!

aluminium.

Haha, if they invested it's their own fault, and I don't want anything to do with a private owned bank that works in other countries, Shouldn't be Icelands fault if you invest in a privately owned bank, and "Björgólfur Thor" has lived in Britain for the past what 10-20 years? and the crisis here can be blamed on him and a few others responsible, and 300.000 citizens have to pay.

I think you got it a bit backwards.

Many of the financial products of the banks in question were directly aimed at "normal" people in foreign countries.
How do you think they thought they could offer those high interest rates? THEY were big banks who took high risk investments. There are reasons they crashed and obviously the risks they took where on of them.
Additionally, those banks contributed a substantial amount to Icelands GDP, so it's pretty safe almost all the people living there did profit from it, one way or another.

Yes, the media is most likely over the top, and the claims from Germany for example were already honored.

But saying that they shouldn't be payed back, is about as insightful as saying Lehman Brother's shouldn't have gone bancrupt because they were fooled by big evil banks.

Why should they pay back the UK anything?

Most of the UK money in Icelandic banks wasn't guaranteed by the government, it's peoples/local governments (Got to laugh at UK tax payers money being used to support a foreign country) fault for not understanding how the banking system works.

This is all about money which was supposedly guaranteed.

It wasn't.

It was, it said it very clearly in black and white when you applied for an account with IceSave.

I know, because I opened an account with IceSave shortly before it went down - fortunately close enough that they hadn't transferred thousands of pounds of my savings into their blackhole, so I was able to cancel the transfer.

The section explaining this was very explicit, because the EU limit was lower than the UK one, so it spelled out how the Icelandic side guaranteed up to the EU limit, and the UK FSA would cover the remainder up to the UK limit (and that funds above that would never be returned).

Had I have applied 1 month earlier, the UK government would have been out of pocket by x thousand gbp having paid me back the money that I was owed by the icelandic body that was supposed to be guaranteeing the savings, so yes, they certainly should pay any money back to the UK.

(I chose to go with IceSave because they were offering significantly better interest rates than other banks, probably specifically to get people with savings to help dig them out of the hole of having over-committed themselves)

It wasn't by the government (Private organisation was guaranteeing, although you could argue once they bought out the bank it changed things) .

To my knowledge they were always offering high interest rates because they were doing risky things with their money, not because they were trying to claw it back :P

Banks offer low interest for "safe" practices (Where they do less/only low risk things) and high interest for "risky" practices (Such as sub-prime market lending). Obviously a lot of people haven't understood this and just thought IceSave was being nice.

Why should I pay for a private owned banks mistake just because the owner is Icelandic? And come on... really you got yourselfs into this mess by investing, can you see the situation reversed if the USA would demand 700bn pounds? and would UK be able to do it? And the situation here is much worse than in the UK, but I'm not whining about it like a cunt, deal with it, was my fault to invest there & there. Stop whining about what doesn't affect you at all and frankly, have no clue about. This affects Iceland 100% and Britain like 0,2-0,3%. Gordon Brown being extremly unfair and a cunt that he is.

Why should I pay for a private owned banks mistake just because the owner is Icelandic?

because it is not private any more, you nationalized them, therefore you are the owners.


And it started when your banks started offering those insane interests, not with people accepting the offers. The Brits never offered those interests to the American public, and certainly not for a value of 700bn.

However, there have been many deals between American and European banks and so on, in a sum easily surpassing your 4bn. Those sums were paid, with the notable exception of Lehman Brothers.

But Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.
Every American Bank the was nationalized or sold to a competitor stayed true to their debts.

Your banks were not let go into bankruptcy.
You nationalized them, so why should you be treated any differently then the US or the European countries who did the same?

We nationilized them and it's a new bank, new ID, and that doesn't mean we need to pay the british goverment for what the previous privately owned bank did

actually, yes it does :)


Else you would have had to distribute all the remaining assets of the bank to the creditors. Which would have resulted in lots of money being transferred to foreign countries. i.e. a standard bankruptcy

If you take over the assets, you also have to take over the debts.
If it weren't like that, indebted companies would be nationalized all the time with a big "Fuck you!" to foreign creditors.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/e...981623.ece

well, you either misunderstood my statement or that in the article.

Since you have nationalized the bank you have to act according to its rules. The headline of the article is a bit over the top, saying "it is right". However, later in the article you will find that the author isn't certain. He uses words like contestable referring to the UK position.

The things is, it all depends on the actual contracts between the banks and the savers, and of course the European rules.

But the important part, and the author of the article never disagrees, is this:

A nationalization of any economic entity, after it's insolvent or not, does not by default invalidate any claims other creditors had.

waoh
proving in one comment you need to learn all the basics of credit risk & investment banking.

Why should I pay for a private owned banks mistake just because the owner is Icelandic?

I guess you've misunderstood the meaning of the word "guarantee". This was not a statement that Icesave / Landsbanki would guarantee it, but that it was covered in the case that it collapsed (up to the €20k). The same is true for me right now, as a UK tax payer. Why *have* I paid to support the collapse of an icelandic bank? The answer is because the UK also has a guarantee for it, and they have honoured that guarantee.

really you got yourselfs into this mess by investing

Oh really? So you keep money stuffed underneath the mattress? Seriously, any sensible
person with savings would put it in a bank.

Doesn't justify the fact that we should pay,
p.s
I don't have the source anymore but I remember reading about it some while ago 2~3months when a british bank went bankrupt in another country, they took no responsibility regardless of the "guarantee" and LANDSBANKINN does not represent Iceland by saying it's "guaranteed" private owned bank that went bankrupt.

I think you misunderstood what I wrote, I was commentating on his moral opinion.


But apart from that, I think the three biggest banks were taken over by the government and I don't think they can simply waive the debts when doing so. They haven't gone bancrupt.
Usually a bank has to cover their debts with everything they have. So that means if they went bancrupt, everyone gets only a share of what they once had. But that would not only include the Dutch and the Brits but only all the private people and coorporations in Iceland that had an account there.
However, this is only a general view and I have no idea what the actual situation is or even how the contracts looked like. I read a few articles on this over the past year and I can't remember any of them going into full detail. So, several scenarios are possible (and in almost all the people of Iceland will have to give back some amounts of money) but since I don't know which it is, I didn't write about one. ;)

It's irrelevant since the government already made deals in principle :)

the banks went bankrupt and resolution committees for each bank was formed, and it is now in the process of taking claims and recovering assets. we have new banks now under new ID. what can be paid back from the estate will be, but most of it are private debts that won't get anything. an emergency law was signed the day of the crash to prioritize savings in Iceland - there wont be much left for other claimants. mostly European banks(a whole lot of German) are suing the state claiming the emergency law was discriminating and unconstitutional for the prioritizing. if the courts find that to be the case our debts have already doubled or tripled - but it's unlikely that will be the case, at least according to advisory EFTA legal report and most lawyers.

branches operating outside iceland like kaupthing edge have already long been negotiated - not icesave, obviously.

the banks went bankrupt

that's the first time I heard of that. Afaik they never filed for bankruptcy but were nationalized instead.
Is it possible you are mixed it up with insolvency?


and that law does sound quite illegal to me, possibly not because you were no member of the EU...
But in business terms you usually can't just change the terms after the contract was signed. And prioritizing of other debtors is certainly a breach of contract. Then again Icesave was just a subsidiary...
Dunno, as I said, I have no idea what the contracts looked like.

under normal circumstances it would definitely be unconstitutional in regards to breach of equality and creating unpredictable retroactive laws with massive financial damage. in many cases have Icelandic courts rule against such laws. but this was no normal circumstance - this was done in distress and to avoid utter demise and chaos of society. under such circumstances, with no other option and under absolute necessity, the constitution allows it and i'm sure it's the same for EU countries, i just don't remember the proper English term for it.

well, I would agree it is acceptable for the stability of the country, it's in an abstract way like martial law.

But then it should include the obligation the remedy the situation as soon as possible. Which you are doing.

not really, we're only (foolishly) compensating foreign deposits. most of the demands from the European finance institutions will never be paid(given the law will hold) and we're under no obligation to remedy that.

nor could we, can you name one country that has survived a 350% GDP national debt (or even 200% for that matter).

you might have misinterpreted my "as soon as possible". It's obviously not possible when you go bakrupt right after ;)

not ever

aaaaaand it's gone!

gj iceland

but japan is doing quite well, considering.

Things are easy with a large population.

why?

It just is :P

ok.

I mean if I ware in debt for 2 times my annaul salary and had to pay say 5% interest, that would really suck, but I suppose I could pay it of in ten years so. So for becksland (population: 1) it would be possible.

And in this case, Iceland will be fine for the near future because of their energy price and industry which they can work with. Cause energy prices everywhere will rise, while theirs should be fairly constant.



Of course, if we ever get cold fusion they must go back to hunt whales full times, but that won't happen for a longer time.

if it's a) traditional savings b) there is a legal obligation to do so, i think the money should be payed to the people who deposited it

i agree the lehman bancrupcy was legitimate, and lots of others should have failed instead of the population of the country collectively paying for failed speculation on the hand of a few

actually, i see it as kind of the same scenario in iceland: the population of iceland would collectively pay for the failures of a financial entity. the only difference is who gets the money - in this case it's the clients of the entity, not the entity itself. now it depends on who is responsible for paying the losses on the client's deposits - if they werent insured by the icelandic government, then no way the people of iceland should pay for it. it's a private entity - why should the whole country pay for its losses?

"instead of the population of the country collectively paying for failed speculation on the hand of a few"

you are completely underestimating this. WE ARE collectively paying for the losses of Lehman Brothers even though they went bancrupt. And it is completely unclear whether it would have been cheaper for the government to take them over and pay all the debts.

One thing is clear, if the governments had let every bank that had trouble fail it would have been a disaster.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to defend the bahivious of those banks, then and now, at all. But simply standing there, pointing fingers and saying "HA HA" would have been catastrophic.
No matter where a crisis comes from or whose fault it is, you sstill have to handle it the best way you can...

i'd rather say free markets have proved to work and government intervention in markets and corporations have failed horribly

if the government intervenes in not letting banks fail it simply passes the consequences of someone's failure on to someone else. if on the other hand it lets this institution fail, then it's the problem of the bank itself, because it would go bancrupt and the responsible people would probably face criminal charges because of their reckless speculation. also, in the bancrupcy procedures im sure it would be looked at if assets could be sold to pay back the lost money of the depositors, and i'm sure also generous CEO bonuses would be seized in the process. after all, these are the individuals mainly responsible for the failure, and they would be rightfully punished in this case


also, perhaps people would learn from this and not trust their money to private corporations (meaning banks) anymore, but look out for their own property. maybe in that case people (meaning the population) would also talk to their governments and demand that fraudual financial practices (that are widely accepted in our world) like fractional reserve banking and high leveraging and all kind of unbacked financial instruments in the field of derivatives would not be allowed, so that banks wouldnt even get the chance to ride themselves in trouble of the magnitude where they have no chance of ever paying back what they owe

again, that would be the free market: people looking out for their own best interest, leading to them taking informed & responsible decisions, because their is no fluffy socialist net beneath them to catch their fall if they screw up horribly. and an informed public also makes an informed government, because screwups will be voted out of office


but it's that whole socialist system, "take from some and give it to others who need it more", that is flawed from top to bottom. who decides who needs how much money more than someone else? you cant ever make this work because there will always be someone who feels he's been stolen from, and rightfully so
then we need to regulate the economy and markets because if we dont, the markets might dip or the economy might take a hit and we cant let that happen. and there we have the case of who regulates what and we have chunks and chunks of more debate and as a result more regulations and regulatory agencies
then we discover that this all cant work because it's way too complicated and decision making processes take way too long and are not transparent enough anymore
then we ask for one leader to have the power to take the necessary decisions on his own, which will make things way more efficient
then people die

and imo that's exactly where it's headed today with all the obama worship and democratic processes removed as good as possible in the EU via the lisbon treaty and having 1 president for the whole EU and the EU parlament making laws for us in the future. learn from history? hell no we didnt

i'd rather say free markets have proved to work and government intervention in markets and corporations have failed horribly

Nope.

I really don't have the time (or nerve) to answer that in detail today, but that is completely wrong.
I think you can find many sources on the internet that explain the connections between the financial system, the industry and the normal people.
You can also find sources on the direct consequences the Lehmen failure brought. Now imagine that a hundredfold.


Noone and noone's savings would be safe, most likey many currencies would fail.

i find it funny how recently stiglitz has published a piece "what we have learned from the economic crisis". one point was actually "keynesianism has worked"

what i want to say with that is that even a nobel prize winner like him can be far off. almost all media is off. and almost all universities are off, except from those which do teach austrian economics. so i couldnt care less about your sources, because they are probably among the mentioned

the gold (or basket off commodities) standard & limited bank authorities is the way to go and the USA have prospered tremendously under it over 200+ years without major financial crises. now under the federal reserve system and keynesianism we have had the great depression, the 80s recession and a few smaller ones and currently a worldwide depression (yes, under all classifications it already is one) which could potentionally blow the great depression away in terms of damage to the economy. noone in their right mind can possible be of the opinion that this current economic policy is the way to go

the gold (or basket off commodities) standard & limited bank authorities is the way to go and the USA have prospered tremendously under it over 200+ years without major financial crises.

uhm what?


besides your apparant ignorance how old the USA actually are, whether Keynesianism works or doesn't work in general was never the matter, nor was which system is better.
The question was: WE have this system right here and we have a crisis. What do we do?

Everything else are just theoretical considerations. Oh and there are many articles on how the gold standard is impossible to have today, which is why almost everyone is saying that. Maybe you should start reading those.

They're all wrong that's why!

ok then. I'll be waiting for when the world gets saved by those who teach Austrian economics.

they failed in the 40's :s

i think the mentioned problems are connected & this system cant be saved. we need a new one, or better an old one that has proven to work. the current financial system promotes reckless speculating, the current judicial system doesnt prosecute said frauds, and the current socialist political system encourages people to not be responsible for their actions but rather be brainless slobs

this all cant work. at the moment they're patching over a failing system. whatever you patch up will postpone the problems just for a while longer and then new, bigger holes will pop up

oh and a gold standard would work nowadays. in these articles the main argument is of course that gold runs low (which is correct, mining production is declining) and thus money supply would run low. well we could actually have a relatively steady or fixed money supply and still have a good economy - prices would just have to set accordingly. and of course we couldnt have anything like leveraging or fractional reserve lending on such a standard, which in turn would NOT ruin the economy like many want to make it look like, but actually remove most of the risks involved in financial systems, which would bring a great great deal of security compared to nowadays

think the mentioned problems are connected & this system cant be saved. we need a new one, or better an old one that has proven to work

just replying to this first sentence, cause that is the root of our "discussion":

1. When the crisis happened something had to be done, either let it fail or not. You said they should have let it fail. And as an argument you state the the current system is bad. (And I agree it has many many flaws). But as I said before, you cannot do that during a crisis. Here's an analogy:
There is a burning building with people trapped in it and on top of it, and you are asked how to save the most. As a solution you a proposing to let it burn to the ground and build a better one which you think can't catch fire.

2. The gold standard did once work, yes. However for several reasons it can not work in this day and age, the reasons for that get taught in basic economics (well, maybe not in Austria). I mean if you want a system that works, we could also go back further to bartering, which also "worked" once. But I think you will agree that that might not work too well today.
I find it also very interesting that you seem to claim the gold standard would generally prevent a financial crisis, even though it was used in many countries at the beginning of the great depression.

"even though it was used in many countries at the beginning of the great depression"

in combination with the federal reserve system (in the US), fractional reserve banking and other practices that had the potential to greatly increase the money in circulation without real backing. how do you figure the 20s stock bubble was fueled, and why do you figure so many banks failed back then?

the gold standard is only one restriction to speculation that needs to be (re-)implemented

edit: way to adapt bernanke's, obama's etc "burning house" analogy. i wont reply to that because it rages me

I actually haven't heard of their example. I cäme up with this one on my own.
However, people who love to insist on a theoretical "solution" that won't solve a problem at hand deserve to be raged...

The same as I have never heard a conclusive answer how such a gold standard could ever be put to practice today. The furthest they got is pretty much saying: "Whatever it takes is acceptable." Awesome.

Here's another harsh news for you:
No theoretical solution has ever solved any real problem, when the practical side hasn't been worked out.

the practical side HAS worked out with what i described. the gold standard has worked and we also had a working economy before fractional reserve lending

ive finally found the chart regarding the "200+ year US on the gold standard" comment - it might not have been the USA for the first 100 years, but that doesnt matter for illustrating the point:

http://666kb.com/i/bfmjmk8fos2nkffgs.jpg


i see what you're getting at, and the practical solution that i and others would propose is a slow transition to the aforementioned standard. huge deleveraging would have to take place, which sure would destroy a good part of the economy, but that only because the huge leverage and unbacked money was not sustainable to begin with
we can continue patching up our current economic system and after every patchup (this one being the wall street & investment banks all over the globe bailout & the housing bailout) it will crash again to deeper lows
today, if we began to implement the solution i mentioned it would probably crash some parts of the economy to deeper lows than the next low we are facing anyway (alone because of the fraudual big wall street investment banks probably throwing a tantrum and withdraw all their stocks and futures etc and crash the markets to new lows), but not deeper than the even bigger low after the next even bigger patchup
then we can begin to remove the most dangerous financial practices like most derivatives and can try to resolve the 1,5 quadrillion $ derivatives bubble the world currently sits on (wont be no easy task, that is sure)
steps have to be taken incrementally over a decade or longer and the economy i think would stabilize on a lower, more real and secure level. psychologically, people would have to learn again that wealth doesnt come from nothing or by just gambling on the economy, but will probably learn to appreciate the added security of this system. after the last step, which is probably the removal of fractional reserve lending, the markets should be left alone from intervention and put on their own to grow again in the right direction, which is simply money exchanged for goods and services without speculation on any of the three

BS, Icesave was a retail savings bank - they got nada to do with investment banking (CDS and similar shizzle), other than their parent bank engaging in such.

Noone ever complained about the boom years, when everyone got cheap credit for housing and cars and low lobless numbers. Now that the bill is due, they refuse to pay up.

A referendum about "Should we pay EUR 4 Bn to evil foreigners?" is retarded. You are essentially bankrupt and need outside help. Do you expect the IMF and EU to just hand over the dough w/o negotiation? I think you underestimate the implications. Recently looked at a Euro vs. ISK chart?

Many countries fked up in a big way, but they all can point the finger at Iceland and say: 'At least we didn't do THAT'. I think the idea of establishing a british protectorate on the island should be seriously revisited, since its inhabitants aren't capable to gover tehmselfs in a responsible way. It would be better for the EU and the Icelanders alike.

In short, STFU, pay up and go back to fishing, alluminium melting or whatever the frak you were doing on your insignificant island before losing the farm in the global casino.

woah great analysis, because what better "outside help" for a bankrupt nation than to pay 5.5$BN dollars to foreign governments without any legal(or moral, but that's irrelevant) obligations.

Pay back in installments for immediate credit/recapitalization help - whats so bad about that?

Whats your suggestion on how to handle the mess?

Any loans from the IMF et cetera would go straight to the UK/NL and then they would need to pay the IMF back interest.

The Icelandic government are under no legal (or moral, people knew it was risky and if they didn't that's their fault) obligation to pay anything "back" and using the IMF would ruin the country.

There's countless examples of how he IMF have ruined a countries economy throughout Africa since they usually have clauses that the country must become a total free market (which results in American companies moving in and controlling anything that makes money).

personally i would've liked to see our government have the backbone to tell the UK/NL off and have them seek their right in a court of law like any civilized county. it is the overwhelming opinion of European law experts and even British law firms hired by the government that the outcome would favor us - the EEA regulation is simply majorly flawed and was not written to account for a systemic failure of an entire banking sector like happened here.

but this is irrelevant today, the UK has always denied taking this to court and we can't afford to wait the years for the outcome under enormous pressure from the outside world, the IMF(under strong british influence) and the Nordic countries we simply have to settle it immediately- and that's we're doing.

a deal was already made - even though it equates to $64096 per family and will damage us for years to come. the interests alone account for $800.000 per day which is huge for us. most see it as a horrible deal putting the entire blame on iceland and none on UK, NL or the EU or EEA, even though the bank operated completely within their regulation framework.

the veto yesterday was in regards to parliamentary backing of the agreement already signed - not a veto saying we won't pay. that bill was coined after the british and the dutch refused an earlier bill accepted and signed by the parliament and president in August - our counterparts refused because it had legal reservations along with limitations that our payments could never exceed 1% GDP and that we wanted to re-negotiate again 2024 if the amount had not been paid in full.

and so this new bill was made in desperation without any legal reservations and rejected by the president after huge protest by about half of icelanders(the nation is split - the other half preferred him to just sign it fearing the heavy response of the international community). again - the veto of this bill does not mean iceland is saying it won't pay - foreign media has this completely wrong for the most part.

basically the people protesting don't see why they should be made paying for loss of british and dutch savers for a private run bank they didn't even know existed, operating in britain. they themselves saw none of the profit - and they've lost a whole lot more themselves - basically the profits were privatized and the losses are now nationalized. not to mention we simply can't pay - but don't worry, we will, unfortunately.

what happens next hopefully is that we re-negotiate a better deal, probably with a third party medium like the EU or Canada. that's the absolute best case scenario, worst case scenario is something far worse.

There are some parts to consider. And are completely open for discussion.

According to the Dutch and British government, Icesave was not a bank by itself, it was just a brand of Landsbankinn operating here. For that reason the depositors should get compensated by the Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund.

The Dutch and Brittish compensation schemes compensate for way over that 20k. In the Netherlands we get compensated up to 100k.

The fact that population of iceland never saw the profit themselves doesn't mean they didn't benefit from it. A large part of Icelandic GPD came from the financial sector. Which means a big part of the Icelandic wealth in general came from the financials.

yes, the Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund was accountable for 20k€ for each account but it ran out of money after the crash. but the depositors fund is a private financial institution - not government run or with government backing. in fact the very directive it is run under, Directive 94/19/EC, specifically forbids any state guarantee since it would discriminate against banks depending if they came from big or small countries.

the system must not consist of a guarantee granted to a credit institution by a Member State itself or by any of its local or regional authorities

but lawyers have pointed out that even this is irrelevant since the EU and EEA regulation was not intended to deal with a systematic crash as is what happened here. Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos agrees in a speech March 3 2009. quote:

“First and foremost, European countries need to take a close look at how the deposit guarantee scheme is organised. It was not designed to deal with a systemic crisis but with the collapse of a single bank."

why do you think the UK/NL has always refused to take this to court? if it were to be taken to court the outcome could possibly expose the entire EU banking system causing devastating effects reaching far beyond Iceland. in my opinion Iceland shouldn't sacrifice its future to save a heavily flawed EU regulations, but unfortunately that's what's most likely happening.

i don't agree with the idea that since icelanders had so much wealth from icesave that this should just be collateral damage - icelandic tax payers have already paid their due - they should not extend charity beyond what they are legally obliged to do. the profits we unknowingly made from icesave is not even one payment into what this deal is about. and i could ask in return if the people that put their savings into an internet bank with ridiculously high interest rate don't share any responsibility themselves. but this is irrelevant - they've been paid by britain and holland already. this deal is only between the two governments.

If roles were reversed you can bet the UK/NL wouldn't pay.

true

in my opinion Iceland shouldn't sacrifice its future to save a heavily flawed EU regulations, but unfortunately that's what's most likely happening.

well you did sacrifice it when you let your banks get to big. You accepted the EU regulations.
And again, there is no denying that your very high GDP has a lot to do with your banks.

You profited from the stupidity of European savers, and yeah Iceland's future might look very dim now. But you certainly are not simply victims.

I never said we were simply victims but we're not the only one's at fault either. A lot can be said about our own regulatory system and government but that doesn't change the fact that the Icelandic banks (private companies) were allowed to run under EU regulations under the same supervision as other European banks. But your comments about GDP are general, you're not really addressing anything in particular. it seems you believe Iceland should just pay every claim they're confronted with regardless of the legality or true obligation because we supposedly made so much profit from it anyway. So that's fine and you've said that at least 10 times already but no sensible debate can come from it.

No I have not said they should pay every claim. I would like you to point out where I did that, let alone ten times. With repeatedly saying that Iceland's citizens profited I am countering your statements where you blame it all on the private sector making it look like it didn't affect the normal people.

As a simple example, I wouldn't back any claims that Iceland should still pay any interest on the savings.

My point is this:

The banks were going bankrupt, yet your government decided to save them, and with them probably savings from most people of Iceland, including the politician's own saving, and possibly also the accounts of the companies. I am not saying that that was a stupid move, btw!
However, if you save your own accounts, you can't just simply turn around and say that all other accounts won't be saved. Or, even worse, call foreign investors stupid for putting money in those banks.

Everyone should be treated equally, either they all were stupid and lost much of their money in the crisis and the bankruptcy (like many other people who invested in other things) or they all get saved. No special deals.

you cut out one sentence of my post and replied with something very general and arbitrary. In my post I was making the case that according to the EU regulation we are probably under no obligation to compensate the depositors fund. The regulation is flawed. So in my speculations of the legality of the matter your reply is:

You accepted the EU regulations.
And again, there is no denying that your very high GDP has a lot to do with your banks.

This is what I mean by general, arbitrary, by that reasoning since the banks "accepted" the EU regulations by operating under them Iceland should be forced to do the exact *opposite* of what the regulation requires of them?

as to your main point, throughout the entire thread I've been saying Iceland should honor all its obligations and pay everything they should pay according to law, nothing less, nothing more. you obviously disagree with this, you've made your point numerous times and i have no interest in debating morals, as I said nothing sensible can come from it.

Alright, so there is an obligation to compensate after all (even tho the terms and amounts are under dispute).

The losses were nationalized all around the world (even tho not at 10x GDP madness level). I dont see exactly why UK and NL taxpayers should eat icelandic bank losses on top of their own. Many countries bailed out their banks - and their international subsidiaries. My very own country keeps sinking Bn after Bn all over eastern europe. You aren't very special in that regard.

i'm saying everyone should pay for what they are legally obliged to do, including Iceland. but one thought for humor since you mentioned the usa and that we're no different, could you imagine the UK bullying the US into compensating for the heavy losses caused by Lehman Brothers in their country, and could you imagine them freezing all US assets in the UK under "Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act" listing US companies with Al-Qaida ultimately pushing the banks off the brink?

I'm actually from continental europe.

That comparisson isn't really accurate since LEH has not been nationalized like Landsbanki, Glitnir etc. and therefor the govt did not guarantee their debt. Quite a bit of the american bail-out money went directly from AIG, Citi and so on to european banks to cover their obligations. A better comparison would be if the USA would have bailed out their banks but only cover the obligations to american counterparties and customers - then there would have been a lot of ruffle feathers. But i agree the terrorist thing was over the top and the dispute should be settled in more civilized negotiations (which i understand already took place on Oct).

if you had your banks go bancrupt, just like lehman borthers noone could have bullied you. But (I still think) you didn't, you nationalized them.

The US Government put billions into their banks + AIG to pay for debts, as did many other European countries.

Sure some of the things the Brits did where over the top, but then again at that point your financial system was going really down the drain, compared to that of the US.

draconian actions to drastically worsen a horrible situation were taken before the banks were nationalized

The solution is simple- offer to sell Iceland to Russia, then the rest of the international community will come running with bailout money. Bunch of Financial Terrorists.

They've already tried and failed to get money from Russia.
Basically nobody wants to bail them out.

Its much easier to pretend to like Russia until we kill all the muslims, steal their oil and craft their future,then we can start hating on Russia again, or maybe China for killing Packistani druggies with aparent mental health problems, despite having no record.

We tried and they were interested, We didn't contact them for months, and the only reason why we contacted them in the first place was so our neighbours would loan us the money when they see that Russia is willing too, and they got very offended when they found out. Get your head out of your ass and stop pretending like you know shit about this.

Sounds like a standard business practice, deal with "competitors" to get better rates.

Of course, you can't do it too often or else, those competitors won't deal with you anymore :)

I know plenty plenty mate.

You've been swapping money round for years and when the shit hit the fan you stole the money and showed your true colours.

You do at lest retain the classic icelandic trait of telling people from more successful countries that they don't know what they're talking about.

your currency has halved in the internetional world, you'll never get into the EU and nobody will touch you with a barge pole unless its to buy fish and wool.

Your people will be suffering for decades because of this.

1) I have been swapping money around for years?

Stop talking to me like I'm some Icelandic representative or in any way the cause of the crisis

2)"You do at lest retain the classic icelandic trait of telling people from more successful countries that they don't know what they're talking about."

telling people from more successful counries? what are you insane? You seriously think I envy a horrible person like yourself

3)"Your currency has halved in the internetional world, you'll never get into the EU and nobody will touch you with a barge pole unless its to buy fish and wool."

Who ever said anything about us wanting to get in the EU when I say "us" I don't mean the left-winged constantly failing goverment we have atm.

4)"Your people will be suffering for decades because of this. "

Again, to name a few these are the people to blame for this: http://i48.tinypic.com/1hdoxd.jpg to name a couple.

-----

How is this proving that you know anything regarding icesave ?

P.S

Stop it with the generalization, YOU'RE FROM WALES... and you keep thrashing Germans, Poles and whoever on this site constantly and keep bragging about yourself(this is the internet not that anyone would believe your stories) thinking you're so significant to the others here just because you're from Wales, from all I can see you're just a fucking loser, you keep bitching at others. Seriously, what have you contributed to your country that allows you to bitch at 2nd/3rd world countries(not that it would justify it). You're just an awful human being, and don't even claim to be a troll, everyone here knows you're a ignorant/lying/prejudice. I won't reply to you again, hope you change your ways m8.

did you just call Jameiro m8?

He's my m8

You added me as a m8 once. So I added you back. Then you removed me. It is all your fault.

<3

Trashing Icelanders, Poles and Germans is nothing new.
But nice attempt to try and rally support.
I actually consider myself British and I'm half Welsh and English but thatnks for the insight stemmed from half assed knowledge.

germany is the most hated counry on the planet. It's actually official.
Poles are kinda a joke for leaving their country and economy and working crappy jobs. If I was about name calling then why am I not calling OZ or the USA shit? Maybe because they're not.

When I say you've" I'm obviously talking about Iceland.
Do you really think I believe a quake nerd is responsible for the meltdown.

haha yes I'm jsut a horrible human being, it has nothign to do with the massive truckload of fucking losers around here does it.
calling people a liar, including yourself.

Its so amusing. What am I liar about again do tell?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/2137729.stm wrong mate, everyone hates the British and loves ze germans. :)

You're stealing my shit!

That's mostly the English though, the welsh burn English holiday homes so we understand your plight.

When you see football violence abroad its almsot entirely English.
Scotland wales ireland just refer to them as "English Twats".

There were some other surveys where many countries polled all rated UK (and USA) as more negative that plenty of others.

well, I think we better shouldn't ask the Dutch and French about that :]

The question is, can you really call it lying if a deranged person actually believes his fantasies?

A lie detector would tell you that it's all true.

Nah, this year will be tough but already next year things will be moving up again. At the end of the day we're still amongst the world's chief exporters of aluminium, various fish, geothermal power and we have a highly educated work force. There are also great indicators of oil equivalent to that of Norway's @ Jan Mayen and Dreki area, but that's in the near future. Given the small population and our own currency, it allows us flexibility we wouldn't have as a bigger country / with the Euro, economic recovery should be relatively speedy.

As for the EU we've already applied, negotiations are due to start this fall. Membership is almost guaranteed to be accepted, but I doubt the public will vote for membership in a referendum. As it stands opposition is quite high, although that could change in the next 1-2 years. Personally at the moment I'd probably vote no - we're in the EEA and EFTA so already we've legislated about 70% of the EU regulatory. But I might change my opinion - depends on the deal we get.

Otherwise your economic insight and analysis of the situation is spot on as usual, I'm always amazed you don't have a college degree. :)

PS: You can't possibly prove elves don't exist, I've told you many times..

Cod War III

:D

If you say so :)

I think you'll be feeling the pinch for years.

Well if an uneducated daily mail reading dumbass says so.

What are you talking about, british media is outstanding! :D

Well, it's not like he said something completely wrong.
You won't recover in six months. It will probably take some years. Yet, I would still call that a fast recovery.

I heard, England still hasn't recovered from the time when they picked up Wales.

Personally at the moment I'd probably vote no - we're in the EEA and EFTA so already we've legislated about 70% of the EU regulatory. But I might change my opinion - depends on the deal we get.

yap, that what I dislike about the EU, every country think it's ok to treat it as it's bitch. See Poland.

Blame the French

We always do.

I also blame our lousy chancellor, who has managed to stay in office despite never doing anything.

Most "Nei" people think of membership as a waiver of our sovereignty and independence to men in Brussels and that as a small country we'd have little say in anything. And they're afraid the evil EU are eyeing our natural resources + territorial waters.

That is ok as an opinion, don't get me wrong. Even though a small country like Luxemburg benefited a lot, and countries with economic instabilities, as well.

What I don't like is the wait until they offer something good part and we'll reassess our opinion. I'm not saying that it's specific to Iceland, by now every member country has begun acting like that a bit :(

I still believe the EU in general is a good thing, but it has a lot of negative sides.

The union of European nations is a good idea and a vital move if Europe wants to keep ahead in terms of development.

The way politicians are trying to achieve it though is pathetic and counter-productive.

The fact that not one single nation in the entire European Union is fighting for Europe to be truly united is amazing considering we all know that is exactly what they want (hence the non-democratic nature of the union).

The one way to help unite Europe and convince people it's a good idea is clearly to setup an undemocratic organisation where a group of nations act like little girls pretending they are best friends to each others faces while trying to back stab everyone and take all the riches for themselves when the chance arises.

i say we melt the fucking island!

I saw through the bullshit Iceland was spinning many years ago.

Next time I'm in Iceland I'm gonna take a nice long shit in the Blue Lagoon as revenge.

m8, the tourist board will never let you in the blue lagoon.

so why didn't you bet against them and become incredibly rich?

He was trapped under a mountain of Baftas.

I wonder what would have given you that idea when the rest of the world was thinking these investments were super safe?

Because it was Jamerio who was pulling the strings

Because you would have to be fucking stupid to think that a country which exported little more than fish and wool and has a majority population that still belives in elves are somehow financial geniuses.

They conned everyone and when the game was up everyone is acting all surprised that they're going to keep the money.

They've sealed their fate for a long time. You can only cheat for so long.

I also know vice presdidents at Morgan Stanley :)

Iceland are far from the only guilty party, the only difference, they were the weakest before this mess happened and so are suffering more.

I'm not affected by the problems of the common man anyway.

HE KNOWEZ PPLZ IN THE INDUSTRY LISTEN TO THE MAN SPEECH ZE TRUF!

I just looked at the high interest rate...

So let me summarize:

People from Iceland all really dumb and bad at finances and all, and yet they managed to con the entire UK?

That says a lot about financial genius inhabiting the UK :P

in resume, your country is still under global crisis.

I didn't hear them protesting like bitches when it was about taking other people's money.

Hello, want to share some butt n' cock?

You should declare EVE online ISK an equivalent of real life ISK and pay it back in them. If Americans can print money, so can you!

The money should and always will be taken away from idiots. When you're dealing with banks (salesmen w/e) just remember that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

this.

During my time as a student, at least five times some bankers tried to sell me their financial products, some of them had just turned twenty or so.
Every time I asked them what they think how much more 50€ a month mean to me as student, than 150 a month when I start working. Only one got the hit, the others insisted on trying to sell me stuff ...

just play enough zotac to get your money back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID6sDekCGmY

"the icelandic government believes the president's move is unconstitutional"

exciting news - now a presidential veto is unconstitutional. lol

edit: also, is this a joke interview?

mistranslated

Nicely written article about the disaster:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904


Maybe iceland isn't in a such a bad position afterall. They have an endless amount of geothermal energy and fish. With fish and energy you are pretty much all set and can live in isolation. On the negative side there is Björk, but that problem is solveable.

uh, oh, lol @ article.

Its just how an outsider experienced your country. Naturally this view has to divert from a native. Especially if said natives stewed in their own incestuous juice for more than a millenium, it might be closer to reality than the assesment of a real icelander.

yes, or it could be complete bullshit from A-Z which dumb readers such as yourself think is truth using exaggerations and lies to find an interesting story that sells. ^^
*ed

not even talking about his "perception" of "the icelandic male" lol but what he/she puts as facts(which don't vary depending who reads them) that could easily be refuted by google or encylopedia - fact checking was none.

I'm not discussing factual merit with people who do not rule out the existance of elves.

see this proves my point - I guess the author of the article was succesful

Geothermal, yes. Fish, no.

lols,
He starts with talking to a guy who he claims works internationally for the IMF, but can't find Iceland on a map.
Then suddenly the author himself is sitting in a bus in Iceland himself. Didn't even mention he flew there himself.

He also goes on about such a small country handling so much money.
Has he never heard of Luxemburg?

I'm with hnns on this one :)

Well, when such superstars like Wolfowitz can be in charge of of the Worldbank, i find it not completly unbelievable that some employees of the IMF are equally retarded.

He jumps back and forth in time, so what. He actually mentioned an incident on the plane, but whats your point. Its a vanity fair piece, not a diary.

And why would you even compare a taxhaven for funds and wealthy individuals to a country that let 3 toxic too-big-too-fail banks grow to 10x GDP with the sovereign taking all the downside risk. They have nothing in common.

hah, Worldbank are pretty rolf too

Seriously, if I was a nation I'd rather turn to shit on my own than let the Worldbank or IMF have a say in things.

small country, few inhabitants, lots of money in banks.

yeah, nothing in common, nothing at all.

yeah, so similar and compareable that one ended up bankrupt and the other one just fine.

there is a difference between "comparable" and "completely the same"

here let me give you this quote from the article:

Peoria, Illinois, doesn’t have global financial institutions, or a university devoting itself to training many hundreds of financiers, or its own currency. And yet the world was taking Iceland seriously.

and let's make a new statement:

Peoria, Illinois, doesn’t have global financial institutions, or a university devoting itself to training many hundreds of financiers, or its own currency. And yet the world was taking Luxemburg seriously.

notice anything?

yes, Luxemburg doesn't have it's own currency anymore, but it once did and it was a banking place back then.

I notice that you and Vanity Fair suck at comparisons. So what you are saying is the what they did up there in Iceland was not utter madness and is actually comparable to Lux? And if its not comparable to Luxembourg - wtf are you on about.

or maybe it is you who isn't too good on understanding comparisons.

In the four sentences, from which I have the quote, the author tries to make a point that the size somehow matters. He says Iceland is just a big as Kentucky and has about as many inhabitants as some random town. And that is has it's own currency and a university with finance students.
Then he says "and yet" about it being taken seriously, clearly implying the he doesn't think it should be.
In those sentences, he writes nothing of business practices or anything.
Therefore, he is trying to make a point that a small country can't handle that business.

Which let me to bring up Luxemburg, a small country that in fact can handle it, as you yourself seem to agree with twice.

Do you know understand what the fuck I am on about?

becks 0 - qtip 1
u got egd.






ps: that'll be 5 eur

finns don't and can't count.

"too-big-to-fail" ?

seriously now...

I spoke to a man at the International Monetary Fund who had been flown in to Reykjavík to determine if money might responsibly be lent to such a spectacularly bankrupt nation. He’d never been to Iceland, knew nothing about the place, and said he needed a map to find it.

I'm glad such a well educated, knowledgeable and worldly man is in charge of determining such things.

and on top of that I would absolutely trust whatever such a person tells a guy who writes for vanity fair.

Iceland's whole economy was one giant bubble. I am glad that it finally popped. Denmark should annex.

A german that Jamerio would like?

A society built on cowardly vikings was always destined to fail.

you do realize that the Normans, who built the English society as their lords, where direct desendants of the vikings?

Yes but not cowardly vikings.

ah, so there are cowardly and uncowardly vikings, good to know.

And the ones that travelled in open, wooden boats, through icy seas, all the way to Iceland are the cowardsly ones...

Stupid by the sounds of it :)

tehehe :]

What's the capital of iceland.
About £2.50

What have Icelandic banks and an Icelandic streaker got in common?
They both have frozen assets.

I'm just glad hnns and ignigknot are licking their wounds :)
You can't beat Karma jerkoffs.

I don't get the first one.

Dude you live in an area that has been shit for centuries.

Fuck off fatboy.

Would sound better if the area in question wasn't named as the uk's first area of outstanding beauty.

Send me your paypal, I'll send you some loose change and a packed meal.

yeh, the looks of a landscape really says a ton about the people living there.

The Sahara is also magnificient to look at and I guess the density of smart and beautiful people is comparatively high.

That area of outstanding beauty card of ours is overplayed and old. Still doesn't make up for the rest of the country being shit.

Also the guy who took a picture of 50 pounds shouldn't be pretending to be rich.

lmao.

"These "savers" are to the largest parts foreign investment banks who were counterparties to Icesave in CDS (credit default swaps) derivatives gambles, and who probably knew they were going to fail."
i love when people with no idea of a matter and only repeating what the read with no reflexion talk about derivatives like gambling, when CDSs are mostly traded as a protection.


"If Iceland pays, the IMF promised a 4 billion+ € "rescue package" which is basically credit. So they pay ~4 billion in Icesave losses, then in return get ~4 billion from the IMF which are ~4 billion which they have to pay yet again, with interest. I find that pretty Orwellian :)."


Nothing Orwellian in here: iceland doens't have the cash to pay right now, ans its only option is to borrow. Now, as no private company wants to (wonder why), the IMF is acting as the white knight to protect icelanders. I highly doubt they will recash the money the lent you, considering the time you'll need to recover.

question: you know that lending money at 0 IR means a loss?

You do know how the IMF works right?

yes

If anyone is interested in the legality of the matter and what Iceland's obligation infact are - Alain Lipietz who is one of the men responsible for the EU regulations spoke his opinion on Icesave today in Icelandic television: http://http.0.muli.rs.ruv.is/video.ruv.is/4472547$1.wmv starting at 10:15. In the same program there is a very interesting interview with Michael Hudson starts at 33:28 which also explains better where we are coming from.

*edit fixed link but it's not clickable

(couldn't access the media, doens't matter)

Iceland can do whatever it wants to: paying its debt, not paying.
In the end, it's just a question of credibility on the markets/world's scene that's gonna drive its reaction.

yes, but I wonder if their banks have any credibilty left at the moment.

I suppose it could hurt the trust in their industry, as well.

btw edited the link, should work now

The credibility is already lost, since Icelandic sovereign debt has junk-status since last week (junk grade by Moody's and BBB- with negative outlook by the others).

Guessing having a referendum everytime if they should actually repay or keep negotiationg a bit further doesn't really help one's credit rating.

it's not black or white: the riskier they look (= the less credibility the markets give) the higher their credit spread (= spread over the usual IR)

this is good either for countries (Iceland) than private corporates (banks for instance)
In this case, it's a dark grey ;-)

iceland rocks, i`d be glad do visit

ya, me too. Should do it now, tho, before they get the Euro.

Probably won't happen if these agreements will pass :p, but we're "halfpriceland" now so it would be cheaper for foreigners to visit

Is it in general possible to pay in Euros in Iceland, or do most places accept ISK only?

Some places will take euros I have heard. My uncle runs a Thai restaurant and has let people pay in dollars and euros.

what Igni said :)

yes, the halfpriceland is why I want to go there now.

Because past experience tells me prices will go up as soon as the Euro is within reach. See Romania or Poland or Czech Republic.

or slovakia

yeah, every people I know who get there talked about incredible landscapes

yeah dude i know, like.. i know some people like landscapes from brazil you know, but for me.. i kinda got bored because i`ve lived with those landscapes for a fucking long time then.. i kinda find boring(beaches etc). then i prefer things like in iceland, ireland, sweden, norway, italy.. omg dunno there are so many good landscapes i guess, the alps in france also :0

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/01/29/ic...index.html

i like the guy!

so. when are the votes in?

It's something like 90% against confirming the law with half the votes counted. I think it's pretty much a lock.

yeah, heard that. pretty impressive. and now your parlament acts like it's no big deal. go democracy!

Have you heard the latest..

Iceland wants an apology off Britain for using Anti Terror laws THAT STOPPED IT FROM STEALING EVEN MORE MONEY FROM US!

I mean seriously, talk about having no concept of their behaviour and judging people on RE<<<<<ACTIONS alone.

Its a bit like punching someone's mother in the face and getting all up upset because her son comes looking for you and beats the living shit out of you.

I mean what do you expect?

Defo away with the fairies, next time I go to Iceland I'm gonna take a nice long shit in the Blue Lagoon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8553029.stm

Defo away with the fairies, next time I go to Iceland I'm gonna take a nice long shit in the Blue Lagoon.

You're never going to leave your estate in wales you fat lonely bastard.

That hit a nerve. truth hurts.

And stop projecting your surburban nightmare onto me.
You're the one doomed on a bankrupt rock in the middle of nowhere with no economy and nobody is going to be stupid enough to invest in you again after the shit you pulled.

Still at least you have a deluded society to convince that you were victims all along,when the reality was you spending peoples money, swapping it around and when they asked for it back, you were exposed as thieves.

Its sad to say this but you're such a cunt it almost make me happy what's happend to Iceland just to ensure you finally got your comeuppance. All those years of posting those stupid polls as the best place to live in the world.

I'm not surprised you all felt that way given you were spending the worlds money. Where's your poll now?

HAHAHA!

Don't worry fatboy. Wales is still a shit place and you're fat and nobody likes you.

what he said. as if you'd ever leave sheepland.

The Empire has dealt with Falkland, the Empire will deal with Iceland. These financial villains will be brought to justice.

Yeah they really showed us in the Cod War alright.

haha! an american talking about "financial villains"

hate to break it to you but your country is where pretty much all financial crimes or at least the basic ideas originated. your derivatives poison the whole world financial system, and basically everywhere around the world where companies or countries fail, someone is always involved and that is goldman sachs from america

also you basically are at war with the whole middle east and since you're in afghanistan the opium production increased 12x

way to bring peace, prosperity and health to the world! too sad iceland came and spoiled it all, eh

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/e...052914.ece

"Icelanders shot fireworks into the night sky over Reykjavik harbour to celebrate the referendum result."

Its glad to see your collective failpool of your society is so noble and gracious about the inevitable outcome.

You might think this is a good thing, but no country will do business with you again because of this. I don't envy your futures, or past for that matter :)

SUCK IT :)