Stacy Summary: Hat trick to @maxkeiser! We really have to get Max back into that Blue Lagoon . . .
A year after the banking crisis brought Iceland to the brink of bankruptcy, the island nation is mired in the deepest recession among advanced economies. The stock market has lost 97 percent of its value, and more than 780 companies have buckled under the weight of foreign currency loans as the krona plunged. Consumers refuse to borrow at Europe’s highest interest rates, and international banks reject requests for new financing.
Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, who took office in February, pinned hopes for a recovery on the International Monetary Fund after Kaupthing hf, Landsbanki Islands hf and Glitnir Banki hf racked up $80 billion in debt, 16 times Iceland’s economic production. Now she says the economy may implode again as a dispute over Icelandic savings accounts held by overseas depositors delays a promised $5.1 billion bailout.
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This country needs to be put into perspective…what’s it’s population? About 320,000 people? Man, that’s smaller than Madison, Wisconsin! Getting way too much press relative to its size me thinks.
hey guys, could iceland be an early example of what to expect in other over-leveraged economies?
Iceland is far more dependent on imports than most places, and their currency lost ~50+% of it’s value last year. Might be a faster/harsher version of the US, another importer w/a weakening currency.
Lose 72% in 18 months and make the cover of Barron’s… Is this a great country or what? It’s Miller Time, says Barron’s. Huh? http://tinyurl.com/yfelrbf
Where the housing boom – and the sidewalks – end http://bit.ly/npozM
Russia’s Economy May Shrink `Very Serious’ 7.5% This Year, Medvedev Says http://tinyurl.com/yfmq9kb
and they will fall harder.
i don’t want this to happen. my friends and their families….
@Patrick
Absolutely! I’m watching the UK and USA. They’re going the same way as Iceland, it just takes a little longer…
@stacy
Absolutely you should get Max over here to cover the scandal going on here. What you’ll find is corruption, corruption and a battle about the bits that are left. An example is Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his companies Baugur and Hagar. Even though they are bust, he is still in control! He and his family control 60% of the food & clothes market. He also owns a large newspaper and TV station. Well “technically”he owns it, it’s all leveraged to the roof. And there are more stories like that. It’s all completely corrupted. It’s Mini-USA
Oh, and then there is the IMF, pretty much doing the same to us as is happening in Latvia.
Finally, the loudest voices insist that our ONLY way out of the recession is to have more aluminium factories….yeah right!
green shoots in iceland.
hey guys, could iceland be an early example of what to expect in other over-leveraged economies? and keeping in mind its relatively small size; the implications of this are just…well i don’t know what words can describe it…anyone?
Maybe its to run computers working through huge amounts of data – perhaps thats what you need to chunk through large amounts of data. Say maybe working on algorithms to run on computers, say “within the M25″?
Its just a thought. Its the sort of place you would find difficult to cut of the power off to i guess, no reliability on oil or coal etc.
Kind of “off grid”… and for some reason… “going cheap”
@Palantíri …When a normal company goes bust..
Fully agree … banks are predators and should be dis-empowered ASAP IMO.
An ex bank employee told me that when someone took a mortgage, they’d often say “there’s goes another fool that will have to sell us his house back cheap in a few years”.
That person was a nice old lady BTW … but just a small employee .. now retired !
@y’all
I liked people, power and money
I watched it with my wife
it wasn’t very funny
but it taught me about real life!!!
BBC says, “Iceland looks to serve the world”
I was watching a BBC programme – “Click” last night with half an eye open. When my ears pricked up to a guy called Gudmundur Gunnarsson saying “There are very sensitive financial services that cannot even go outside the M25 in London” and I thought of the high frequency trading, Stacy and Max have spoken of.
The programme was about servers being located to Iceland by big companies. Cause the geothermal energy helps cool and provide energy to run these server farms.
So Iceland is providing “Green” servers for companies and getting fast fiber optic connections to Europe and the U.S…. SO WHAT?
Well it becomes interesting when the film works its way to the bit about…
“…And, in an irony not lost on a country brought to its knees by finance, one early customer rumoured to have signed a deal to move servers here is – well who else – one of America’s biggest investment banks.”
Reading between the lines, when you move into an new office, dont you get the “phone line” connected first?
Text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8297237.stm
and the programme
IPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ncsxb/Click_10_10_2009/
When a normal company goes bust, all investor’s losses its money, all money earned from selling off the company’s assets goes to pay employee salary and any left over money goes to cover debt. Why doesn’t that count when a bank goes under? People’s deposits are not savings but investment in the bank in exchange for a return on the money and the illusion of safety. And what loans the bank has should be transferred to a government created bank with the only purpose to manage them, nothing else. The loan money that drops in to the government should then be used in the public’s interest (you know, onetime investment things like buying new ambulance vehicles to exchange the 30year olds that is in use and so on..) the bank directors should then be banned from all business activities in that country (kind of like ,when an athlete’s gets busted for drug use and get banned for life, sort of thing) and on top of that the directors becomes a government slave worker, sweeping the streets and taking the garbage and stuff. mmm, am I daydreaming maybe? guess so…Time to wake up!
Stacy and Max are the Champs
Of rescue for markets’ low ramps
They put on a show
Max leveled a blow
At banksters political scamps!
@WL @y’all
dunno all the grammer laws but hey!!!
there was a man called keiser,
who told of the money geyser,
though he can get kinda spacey.
with a partner like stacy
we always end up the wiser.
@d3do
I always knew who stole my heart, but I wasn’t sure what they did with it!!!
@stacy
It is time that you make a rule here
All posts must be in the form of a Limerick
There once was a Max named Keiser
Who was known to be a wee wiser
He moved to France
Where he could dance
Upon his gold that lies there
@max
Hey Max, you better do a similar vid for Spain!
Gold up 9:30 today O_O and not even worth a Jibber Jabber xD
BLOOMBERG: “Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a4x9dIJsPn4U
“Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) — Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two- quarter rout in almost two decades.”
Gold up again sharply:
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html
http://www.kitco.com/kitco-gold-index.html
I thought someone was supposed to be supporting the dollar?
Random thought:
Max should bring Simon Johnson on the On The Edge show. Could be interesting.
Here’s his blog:
http://baselinescenario.com/
I wonder what the Women are like over there?
Mike
I’ve eatin the beatin’ heart of a cobra,..how’s aboot that then,……huh,…I’M the DADDY!!
Iceland has the problem that thier hand is being forced. They have been branded terrorist in the “War on Terror”. We know what happens next. Although Tony the Cathlic is now having doubts, after all.
“Cherie Blair has raised questions about her husband’s passionate advocacy of the Iraq war, branding the invasion a “51-49″ decision……… When taking those decisions, Tony is able to step back, absorb all the information and then choose. He is also very good at then convincing everybody else that it was a 70-30 decision all along.”
Well that’s OK then.
http://itn.co.uk/a3632c3ea505a99f7d94ce8eefb4a1ab.html
@Sirial – http://en.gravatar.com
@Dedo:
I highly recommend, belch, it:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/suzettesp/1/1213203420/2.jpg/tpod.html
*Off topic question.
How do you guys add an avatar to your profile ?
@Dedo – ha, it’s a delicacy I believe . . . especially if it hangs outside for a year . .. the stuff that hangs for just a few months isn’t considered as good . . . I had the year old stuff
@Frances,…Prrrrr,..you animal
@Stacy,…..Is that a delicacy or were you a bit skint?
Laotian snake whiskey, bull penis, and hákarl
LUNCH!
@Stacy
Not sure if it is comparable =)
It seems the shark tastes horrible due to its high ammonia content hehe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
@Sirial – yum; I had a little piece of ‘rotten’ whale once when I was in the Faroe Islands; tasted kind of like blue cheese
Iceland shrinks 8% as prices rise 11% in deepest recession
Hmmm…. inflation or deflation??
Maybe worst of both!
Looks like rotten shark will soon be their daily food again instead of pizza and beer.
They managed for millenia on that island, why should they suddenly be in trouble now? Just kick that money habit.
3rd !!!!
“A drowning man will clutch at a serpent” comes to mind. Disappointed to only scrore a second place.
@Lloyd G. – yes, I think I recognize that there was a bull market in ‘democracy’ over the past few years as we invaded country after country to bring democracy we democrats (present company excluded) were high with our wonderful gift we were bringing; but then the fundamentals were breaking down . . . there was first the secret torture chambers and extraordinary rendition flights that then became the not so secret kidnap policies, the suspension of habeas corpus and due process; the illegal wiretapping . . . and yet despite these dreadful fundamentals, we all kept holding out hope that oh boy let’s just double down on this thing called ‘democracy’ with the hope candidates from Obama to Sigurdardottir to purple fingers and green banners . . . democracy was in an irrational bubble without any intrinsic value as it had been hollowed out just as private equity hollows out the value of the companies they buy; you can tell it was a crazy bubble because despite the fundamentals we all held out so much hope . . . bull markets don’t end until there is no more hope . . . kind of like Franklin and Jefferson who held almost no hope in it . . . think we have to get to that point before we can regain rights and liberties . . . or change
When Sigurdardottir took office there was some optimism that things would turn around. Why? Because she’s lesbian.