Added: Oct 7, 2008
From: Naniwa00
Duration: 2:3
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=91858&videoChannel=5The party's over for Iceland, the island that tried to buy the worldThe snow has arrived early in Reykjavik after an unusually long and warm summer. The freeze has brought out the ghostly green haze of the aurora borealis - the Northern Lights - the shape of which shifts dramatically across the tiny city's black skies.The bars and restaurants of Iceland's capital are packed, the Range Rovers and BMWs are parked nose to tail all along the streets of the central 101 district, and music is pumping from a black stretch Hummer limousine cruising by.'What can we do? Its difficult times but we've spent all day talking about it, watching the news getting worse and worse. We had to go out and be with friends. Maybe it's like the party at the end of the world,' says Egill Tomasson, 32, sitting in the Kaffeebarinn bar.Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out.People talk about whether a new emergency unity government is needed and if the EU would fast-track the country to membership. On Friday the queues at the banks were huge, as people moved savings into the most secure accounts. Yesterday people were buying up supplies of olive oil and pasta after a supermarket spokesman announced on Friday night that they had no means of paying the foreign currency advances needed to import more foodstuffs.This North Atlantic volcanic island, which is the size of Cuba, with a population of 320,000 - the size of Coventry's - is an unlikely player on the global financial stage. It is famous for its fish, geysers and for winning the UN's 2007 'best country to live in' poll. But Iceland built its extraordinary wealth on the crest of the worldwide credit boom and now the crunch is sweeping it away, bankrupting a people for whom the past eight years have been, for most of them and by their own admission, one long party.Story continued at:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/05/iceland.creditcrunch
Channel: News
Tags: banks collapse crisis economic economy financial iceland nationalisation world zimbabwe
Rating: 4.30 (10 ratings) Views: 4116' favoriteCount='5 Comments: 25
SierraWolf Says:
Oct 14, 2008 - "fiat systems..."If you are referring to "fiat money",..yeah, I'd MUCH prefer a return to Gold Standard, combined with a US balanced budget and eventual retirement of national debt."inflated dollars" Actually, the US Dollar had been low, but I think I know what you mean. We may not agree on everything, but you are wise to watch these events closely. Good Luck.
markonikko108 Says:
Oct 14, 2008 - I did't write the Free market collapsed,I wrote that free market doesn't exist,it's different.And that's just a myth,an illusion,with-out a social money taken with-out EVEN asking to ALL the community,it will ALWAYS crash down.Now US Republicans are carring out"socialism for banks",socialism for the rich taking taxes from the poor.They are tryin to bail out they criminal friends with some ideology that considered an enemy and fought it by killin'millions around the world in the 70's and 80's
Naniwa00 Says:
Oct 14, 2008 - Icelandic Stocks Drop 77% as Trading Resumes After 3-Day Halt Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Iceland's benchmark stock index plunged 77 percent, the biggest decline on record, as trading resumed after a three-day suspension and the nationalization of the country's largest banks. The OMX Iceland 15 Index fell 2,317.23, or 77 percent, to 687.39 as of 11:48 a.m. local time. Five of the 13 other stocks in the index didn't trade, while the five that did account for about 7.1 percent of the index's value
AlmightyBrazil Says:
Oct 20, 2008 - Hello, I am from Brazil and I have a question for you people.THIS IS NOT A JOKE!Can I have Iceland?I have some money and I want to buy Iceland to annex to the Brazilian territory.Is this possible?Do I can to buy Iceland for Brazil????
gash2024 Says:
Oct 21, 2008 - To be honest bud hold on to your money for now you might get it cheaper in the coming months.
GerhardinAus Says:
Oct 26, 2008 - Iceland cannot be compared with Zimbabwe. Somewhat opportunistic Naniwa.
Naniwa00 Says:
Oct 28, 2008 - Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Iceland's central bank unexpectedly raised the benchmark interest rate to 18 percent, the highest in at least seven years, after the island reached a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Policy makers raised the key rate by 6 percentage points, the Reykjavik-based bank said in a statement today, taking the rate to the highest since the bank began targeting inflation in 2001.
Naniwa00 Says:
Oct 28, 2008 - The central bank is raising rates as Iceland, the first western nation to seek financial help from the IMF since the U.K. in 1976, faces an economic contraction, coupled with possible hyperinflation and rising joblessness. The economy will shrink as much as 10 percent next year, the IMF forecasts. Iceland will receive about $2.1 billion from the Washington-based fund, according to a deal struck on Oct. 24.
kolkron Says:
Nov 8, 2008 - why not? cause theyre white? by economic measurements the imf says they are identical with their african brothers. we ARE all brothers, right?its good to the europeans getting screwed by the same weapons theyve used on the blacks/browns of the world.
GerhardinAus Says:
Nov 8, 2008 - Iceland doesnt take the property of , and kill those that oppose the governing party.
kolkron Says:
Nov 8, 2008 - you mean if icland lands was stolen by blacks the iclelanders wouldnt take it back? this european arrogance is what has finally desstroyed your developed countires. not civilized, whites have never been civilized.anyway all native peoples throw out the whites, take back your land and laff and cheer cause whites are finally going down!
GerhardinAus Says:
Nov 8, 2008 - Go get a brain transplant somewhere so you can stop talking bullshit talk.
kolkron Says:
Nov 8, 2008 - listen brave spear in your nazi land of austria, up yours! its a new world, we gotta black president! and yer imf hitman have turned their guns back on the whites! have a nice life nazi-fuck!
GerhardinAus Says:
Nov 9, 2008 - Fuck youre a stupid cunt. Learn to read a map. While youre at it have a look at how many countries with a black president is not completely fucked up. Itll be the same after you get your new president.
kolkron Says:
Nov 9, 2008 - ahhhh...the truth cames out--or shall i say the leather queen nazi! hey fag nazi go and gas your zionist boyfriend!black power!black president!
sverdslynger Says:
Nov 14, 2008 - you hav emoney in brazil? i thought you only had faellas or whatever the ghettos in that third world country is called
chanakya5514 Says:
Nov 14, 2008 - Iceland will never become like Haiti or Zimbabawe. And the reason. Because Whites never go down to that level. They will be poorer but not become as bad as black nations.
HomicydalVillian Says:
Nov 17, 2008 - "White" nations have been on the level of Zimbabwe & Haiti and WORSE several times throughout history, "whites" (Northern Europeans) have only been at the top of the food chain for about 200-300 years, human civilization is somewhere between 7,000-10,000 years old, to provide a little context.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Almost 1,200 years after Viking chief Ingolfur Arnarson left Norway to found Reykjavik, the crisis engulfing Iceland is forcing his descendants home.There are no jobs here, said Baldvin Kristjansson, an 18-year-old former container repairman from western Iceland, at a European job fair in Reykjavik. Im going to move away and go to Norway.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - The Atlantic island of 320,000, suffering from its worst financial crisis since gaining independence in 1944, faces the biggest exodus in a century. Icelands $7.5-billion economy may shrink about 10 percent next year, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is helping provide a $4.6 billion bailout package.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - About half of Icelanders aged between 18 and 24 are considering leaving the country, Reykjavik-based newspaper Morgunbladid said, citing a survey of 1,117 people between Oct. 27 and Oct. 29.Icelands biggest wave of emigration was in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then, 15,000 out of a total population of 70,000 left, joining a flow to North America from countries including Norway, Sweden and Ireland.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - A hundred years later, Icelands economy is struggling after the nations banking system collapsed under the weight of its foreign debt last month.Inflation surged to an 18-year high of 17.1 percent in November following a currency collapse that drove up prices. A protest against the government turned violent last week as police used pepper spray to battle activists in front of Reykjaviks main police station.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - Unemployment is forecast to rise to 7 percent by the end of January from a three-year high of 1.9 percent in October, the countrys Labor Directorate estimates.A lot of people are registering unemployed, said Valdimar Olafsson at European Employment Services in Reykjavik. Its very hectic and Icelanders are asking for jobs, especially in Norway.
Naniwa00 Says:
Dec 2, 2008 - Norse settlers arrived in Iceland around 874 on sail- powered wooden longships. The country came under Norwegian control in 1262 and then under Danish dominion in 1380. It gained autonomy 90 years ago yesterday and became fully independent from Denmark in 1944.
OgeronimonominoregO Says:
Oct 14, 2008 - You're right, of course, but it goes deeper than that. The whole monetary system is unstable to begin with. If these loan and securitized debt scandals hadn't happened, the bubble would have burst anyway because of fractional reserves and exponential debt accumulation. It's endemic to the system. The US has been able for a long time to export our inflated dollars to others and to get others to loan us money. All of these fiat systems crash eventually - one way or another.