Hello.

This is a little survey of mine.  I live in Iceland and the Icelandic government is currently in a dispute with the British and Dutch governments over failed deposits of the Icesave bank in the UK and Netherlands.

I´m not gonna go into details about the dispute but one of the threats that I´ve heard from all three(!) governments is that if Iceland "misbehaves" in the negotiation process it'll be cut off from the global community and eventually go bankrupt.

So, since Renderosity members come from all over the globe I thought I'd pop the question:

Have you ever heard of Icesave?  And if so, where are you from and what's your understanding of the dispute...

Thanks, Vestmann.

Yep, I've heard of it.  I'm in the UK

Not going to post any opinions - and IMO, nor should anyone else - since political threads are not welcomed.

Ah, the old politics and religion rule.  That's okay since I´m not picking a fight.  There's enough of that going around here at home.  Thanks for the input.

Living in OZ  (neverneverland),  heard of it under here..

Thanks NoelCan. Can't get much farther then right down under ;)

I heard of it. I live in the Netherlands.

I believe all parties are at fault:
The people who put their money at Icesave, because they were too greedy going for the extra interest. If they used their common sense they would have known things were not right.
The Icelandic people who lived so much on credit and taking unhealthy loans.
And of course our Minister who raised the bank guarantee from 20.000 euro's to 100.000 euro's increasing Icesaves debts towards the Netherlands fivefold.

Whichever country pays, it's all from the common people.

What I understood though is that Iceland is already as good as bankrupt.

I've heard of it, but don't know much.  Sounds like the same bubble-idiocy that
has infected the US, UK, and many other countries.   We should be trying to
learn from the countries that didn't collapse, like Canada.  And the lesson isn't
mysterious at all ..... just keep a VERY tight rein on bankers.  We learned the lesson in
1933, then forgot it in 1999.

Well, that's the irony of it, wackymidget. If we accept the agreement as it is today we would probably go bankrupt. The agreement states that we should pay the Dutch and British governments in full with 5.5% interest.  They would loan us the money in pounds and euros and if our local currency would change for the worse we'd be in the deep for sure.

I agree with your view 100%.  I think it is a shared responsibility.  Thanks for the input.

Quote - I've heard of it, but don't know much.  Sounds like the same bubble-idiocy that
has infected the US, UK, and many other countries.   We should be trying to
learn from the countries that didn't collapse, like Canada.  And the lesson isn't
mysterious at all ..... just keep a VERY tight rein on bankers.  We learned the lesson in
1933, then forgot it in 1999.

You're right there Ockham.  They showed a documentary about the great stock market crash here in Iceland after our banks collapsed and the similarities were amazing.  Our banks were privately owned and there were just a handfull of banker-hotshots who amassed this huge economic bubble with little or no supervision from the authorities.  Much like in the stock market crash if I´m not mistaken.

Never heard of it, though I do seem to recall something about Iceland's economic woes and maybe something about Russian loans??? At any rate, being in the US of A, I wouldn't presume to lecture anyone else about fiscal responsibility :-) One problem I see is that here, and I presume in most places, the average citizen knows next to zero about economics. You're licky if the schools teach how to balance a checkbook. As a result, the people are at the mercy of the politicians and the plutocrats when it come to decision making, the haven't got a clue what it all means - even more so than in most matters.  I will say that the notion that any enterprise involving large amounts of money can be trusted to regulate itself is beyond stupid.

As  Eric Hoffer said, "Every great cause, begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." That's just the way the world works.

I hope you guys get it all worked out. Maybe you can sell some of the neat hydrogen technology you're developing.

Hehe thank you Imckenzie.  There is a group here that's trying to get rid of all gasoline and disel driven cars and replace them with hydrogen cars in a matter of few years.  We'll see how far that goes :)   I also belief that your president is keen on visiting us to learn about clean energy.  Hopefully we can strike a deal.  As for the Russians, they were the only ones who were willing to help us shortly after the collapse.  It never came to that though.

 While this thread is currently tame, I am locking it to prevent it from becoming heated, as threads of a political nature have a tendency to do.

Jeni