The Credit Crunch

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

No, IR, I just put it in to make the beer reference look better!

Seriously, merely to get on 'Moot record that it is not a sole consequence of Bush or the Republicans, but rather that there is a genuine responsibility to all sides of the political spectrum in this Warned Of and Long Threatening event.

Some folks have a hard time understanding that all events are not immediately traceable to the current President or Congress. Though one may well argue that Congress has the greater responsibility since it had the greater oversight.

That and I should have saved beer cans!

Coffeehouse, we had bottle deposits back in the 1960s when I was a child not yet teen. We collected bottles from the roadsides to get the 3 cents deposit for each - and like good investors - promptly bought more Coke and candy so we could grow up big and strong. It was one way to get around parental restrictions on Coke and candy.

Why did the Norwegians take so long to pick up on the idea?

Obviously what I meant was the system now used world-wide to handle large amounts of bottle, and likewise deposits. The technical word is the 'Reverse vending machine'.

[Jonathan]

"God bless Iceland", said by Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde, who also likened the financial crisis to an economic natural disaster.

A Meltdown in Iceland

I've kept basically all of my savings in an account at Kaupthing, the biggest bank in Iceland. So naturally I have kept an eye on Iceland throughout this economic crisis.

The past few days have given me the hiccups as not just the banks, but Iceland itself has slipped closer to a national bankruptcy. The island nation is a tiny one, with only 300,000 inhabitants. Most of the national GDP used to consist of the money flow through the large and internationally powerful Icelandic banks. So it is understandable that the financial crisis has hit Iceland particularly hard, in a whole other way than the crisis has affected other countries. The total debts of the banks are now more than ten times the country's GDP!

A couple of days ago I decided to transfer my savings to another bank. I knew the deposits were guaranteed already, but wasn't sure whether it was Iceland or Sweden that stood for the guarantees and I didn't want any trouble.
However one third of my savings were bound and unwithdrawable and NOT subjected to any guarantees! Hence, I've been somewhat stressed about the Icelandic situation
But happy happy! Today the bank contacted me and said that it has just been nationalised and will terminate every account held in Sweden and return the money (plus interest!) to the account holders. I can sleep tight tonight

I wish the Icelanders could say the same thing...

[Coffeehouse]

Yeah, for sure. The Norwegian Kaupthing (which oddly isn't a daughter branch of the Icelandic one.., but affiliated nonetheless) has already been given assurances from the Norwegian gov't, so whomever has an account there can sleep safe now.

We've offered the Icelandic gov't possibilities of loan if they want it. They'll have to ask though.

Last I heard there are planned demonstrations in Reykjavik today, people calling for the Icelandic Central Bank Chairman's head on a plate. Understandable!

[Earniel]

I was actually quite surprised to see an Icelandic bank having so many foreign costumers. I had pegged them down as more isolationist.

Over here our political quagmire and lack of decent government are not helping the financial crisis one bit. France and the Netherlands are faring far better in protecting their interest, while we may end up footing another bill because of that.

While my savings should at the moment be garanteed almost entirely by the government as they're with one of the struggling banks that secured a deal, I had been considering to move them to another bank that gave higher interest before the whole crisis broke lose. Now I have to wait and sit things out because the bank I wanted to move to does not have the same saving-garantee and is -thanks to the (politically inspired) badly-timed comment from the National Bank Director- now being drawn into the crisis as well. Gah!

[Jonathan]

The global markets have certainly reacted positively to the moves by European leaders to inject more funds into the bank system. The Dow Jones made a record gain in a single day.

Markets bounce on trillion-dollar bailout

[brownjenkins]

The stupid delay... that is completely pointless considering the post rate at entmoot these days... made me mispost.

[brownjenkins]

Good to see that Inked is still a master of selective reality.

Do a bit of research on Phil Gramm.

[GrayMouser]

Go here to see why everything that inked posted is totally false:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp

And BTW, inked, when you simply cut and paste someone else's words, even if it's from an anonymous e-mail smear, you're supposed to acknowledge that. Pretending that something that another person wrote is your own is called plagiarism.

[GrayMouser]

Or this, from FactCheck:

No, claims made in a chain e-mail are false. Jim Johnson advised on non-economic matters but quit after a week. Franklin Raines says he took a "couple of calls" but was never an adviser. We find no evidence Tim Howard ever had a connection to the Obama campaign.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec..._economic.html

And of course, inked, if you are in fact the original author of this anonymous chain e-mail, you have my apologies for the remarks above about plagiarism.

But, in that case, you should probably get over to Snopes, Factcheck, and wire.factcheck.org, and show them your original research pointing out where they are wrong

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Or this, from FactCheck:




http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec..._economic.html

And of course, inked, if you are in fact the original author of this anonymous chain e-mail, you have my apologies for the remarks above about plagiarism.

But, in that case, you should probably get over to Snopes, Factcheck, and wire.factcheck.org, and show them your original research pointing out where they are wrong

Lol... I rate that probability as low GM

[inked]

Ah, I see that people do fact check. I am impressed.

GM, Did you think that I wrote that? I am not sure whether I should be offended or not. It somehow lacks my pungency and wit. It is rather flat. You must have picked up on that immediately, what with your allegations of plagiarism. So you thought something askew and went for the jugular. Excellent.

So now you are "in the know" and so are Coffeehouse and myself. I am grateful. Any others reading must know that GM deserves kudos from me for correcting me.