QuoteIceland is a member of EFTA and the EEA
This article talks about Iceland's relationship with the EU. The main issue is lack of control over fisheries (apparently)
I don't know. They're in the group of three (with Norway and Switzerland, I think) with a special trade agreement with the EU, so perhaps they didn't think it was worth trading up from that.Originally Posted by pete
You can't spell failure without FAI
Iceland is a member of EFTA and the EEA
This article talks about Iceland's relationship with the EU. The main issue is lack of control over fisheries (apparently)
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
I've always understood Iceland stayed out primarily due to fishing rights (the same reasons the Faroes are not part of the EU but are governed by Denmark).
The Icelandic situation is the most excessive example of how "cheap" money was over-leveraged. The carry trade played a huge part in this, with cheap money being borrowed in low interest rate environments and being invested in Iceland, which was then acquiring overseas assets at a furious pace.
Absolute madness that a country of 320,000 people was so highly leveraged.
Switzerland like being able to control their own banks as EU regulation would not make so attractive any more. Norway is very rich due to oil 7 gas reserves so don't need the EU.
I wonder how much fish they really have in Iceland.
AFAIU. most of the money was borrowed by at cheap rates by offshoot companies of the Iceland banks with separate company identities in England and Scandanavia. Did not come into Iceland at all.
Those separate companies had by banking standards reasonable liquid assets.
The investment on that borrowed money in Iceland was petty cash in comparison.
How much of AIB is exposed to the builders and property developers at the highest property values for projects in high risk at present? Is it 70%?
17% to property development (BoI 5%)
70% to property in the wider sense, which includes mortgages.
http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinance..._1014537.shtml
Thats it thanks.
This was an article I read in the Tribune
FF,The Builders and the Banks
It was these bits I was trying to recall
'Irish banks are owed €110bn by the property and construction sector. It accounts for €60 of every €100 that residents have on deposit. As 28% of all borrowings, it is significantly greater than the 25% construction proportion of bank lending in Japan when the banks crashed there in 1989'
'A risk assessment conducted by an international investment bank of AIB and Bank of Ireland found half of all loans for development were given to just 40 borrowers. Some 60% of AIB's total loans were taken up by the property sector and 70% of Bank of Ireland's'.
I think it was due to them using this irritating woman in their ads
Tact is for people who are not witty enough to be sarcastic
Denmark has bucked the trend and raised interest rates
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
---
New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
Its the property development stuff thats the real worry.
The valuation of the land on which the loans are secured is anyone's guess at the minute. In any case, it ain't worth much.
Banks have two choices, write it off or provide for it and take an equity stake in the property developers in exchange.
I don't know the main reason for not applying to be a full member of the EU. It's very split.
Nothing worse than listening to Icelanders arguing about something political.
I have often heard 'Too small to have any influence over what it needs to protect'.
Anyway it's too late now, they are on the way to talk to the axis of evil and become the Cuba of the North Atlantic.
The 3 biggest embassies in Iceland are the Russians, the USA and the Chinese.
Then there was some mysterious American Research Institute where all the EMF's emanating would kill your mobile signal stone dead at a 100 paces.
BBC Business
Before the crisis, the Icelandic banks had foreign assets worth about 10 times the Icelandic gross domestic product (GDP), with debts to match.
The Iceland Banks were the some of the first to hit the global market after de regulation. They had a head start on all the others. They were very successful at that banking game that grew and grew when country after country de regulated.
Any economist who has actually looked at the exposure of the foreign branches of the Icelandic Banks and their liquid assets can find nothing remarkable about the operations.
The figures I have seen indicate the liquid assets were well ahead of the exposures and by standards were good.
This is the scary bit for other Banks in England who are actually more exposed.
The Icelandic banks are/were actually better run that many other Banks but there is no way a small country can put in more than a few drips should there be a credit squeeze.
I have no doubt that more and more banks around Europe will fail because this crisis is total and global.
And the so called bail outs will not be sufficient.
But they can be temporarily patched up because of Taxpayers money which suddenly appears like a rabbit from a hat.
I think we safely say that the British £50bn is now starting to flow into the system.
I met the treasurer from Kaupthing (kaput-thing?) a few years ago. Bright guy but he was only a kid. 31?
Exclusive hotel "101 Reykjavik" owned by Kaput thingdirector is reportedly down on business.
Also I think he is in hiding until the arrival of his armour plated Hummer.
If countries were companies Iceland would be bought by Norway.
What's the talk about IMF assistance?
Is sovereignty potentially under threat?
Denmark had a housing bubble worse than ours and 3 smaller banks were nationalised over the last month or so I think.
Iceland complained about lack of help from its friends, but in reality Denmark has its own issues to face up to.
Anyway, I'm sure Geysir will be offering his assistance in any reaction to the hostile UK response!
Actually, Hugo Chavez should buy Iceland. He's got the money.
Good article here about capitalisation.
Sounds like a gambling situation, everyone cashes out & tries to predict the bottom & then a flood of cash into the markets again...The idea is that after capitulation you reach a point at which the last investor who is desperate to get out of shares and move into supposedly less risky assets has sold out.
Capitulation is easy to spot in retrospect but the people who recognise it accurately at the time get very rich.
Sovereignty is not under threat in times of relative peace.
In times of upheaval, Iceland will surely be "protected" for strategic purposes, but by who?
The Brits occupied Iceland during WW2, my house is situated on land (now blessed after undergoing an intense sanctifying process) where they had their billets, there are 3 underground concrete bunkers on the edge of my land.
I hired out a jackhammer and converted one of them to use as a cesspit
The USA is crippled.
What will happen when all those dollars around the the world are sent back to be cashed?
Don't mind Gordon Brown, the stool pigeon of the architects of deregulation and an advocate of selling of the central bank reserves. He is just posturing, focussing public anger on the shifty Icelanders. This is a global crisis.
Iceland only has real strategic value, the Russians are not that naive to think if they want an axle of evil air base here in exchange for a €4bn loan that Nato is going to look very benignly upon that.
A few years ago NATO moved out of the base beside the airport but everything is still in place, the macdonalds, the apartment blocks the hangers, the airstrips, even the 110v electricity. I think the radar system is still in place.
Russia wants an ally with a steady flow of food to supply them with, who knows what else?
The Iceland PM is a remarkably dull and morose.
I'm expecting soon to hear he will have jumped off from the top of 101 Hotel.
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