Skating on thin ice

W

Warbler

At the Start
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
8,493
According to the BBC (so not necessarily true) Iceland's banks have run up debts of £50bn of which British interests have £8bn invested. The problem appears to be that Iceland's GDP is £10bn, so that in nationalising them, the country is now bankrupt (or if they came from another part of the world - a failed state). Looks like they've seized the UK assets anyway for the time being. Trade embargo, naval blockade, axis of evil? I thought that was standard practice for a rogue island?

Incidentally is Ireland's GDP big enough to underwrite this flood of capital that their government has guaranteed that they'll honour if any of the Republic's banks fail?
 
Wrblr: The Irish Gov has underwritten 440Bn of deposits. We expect to have to pay as much as we expect England to win 8 of the next 10 Supreme Novice Hurdles.
 
Call me ignorant but :

1)President Bush proclaims that The US will drill more oil wells such that Alaska will become one big land based platform.

2)Iceland may have to sell everything including its fishing rites, such that the Arctic Ocean will be as empty as the North Sea,

and then some silly environmentalist has just started preaching on the BBC about the need to double our reduction in carbon emiissions.

Surely it must be evident that the environment is way down the priority list. It was nice to have when we could afford it and politicians wanted the green vote but now lets have a reality check!

I still maintain that given all the good intentions, the human race neither has the willingness nor resources to reverse global warming and giving this issue attention is a distraction from what needs to be done - its the economy stupid!

MR2
 
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