Talk:2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis

£550 or £720 million?

This needs a citation. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 17:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Done. Maxí (talk) 18:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Causes?

Nearly all the news articles discussing the situation mention the Icelandic banks being unable to refinance their debt as one of the leading causes of the crisis, with the unability to refinance being linked to the tanking Króna.

But someone reading this article would have almost no idea about the causes of the crisis, a lot of the effects are covered but that's only the half of it.

There are also supposedly a lot of other factors involved, e.g. foreign investors dropping Icelandic assets once the instability of the Icelandic economy became clear, these and other factors also need to be covered. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This article gives a fairly clear analysis. I would also like to find articles connected to the run on Icelandic banks after the government announced it would take over 75% of Glitnir but that might not have made international news. I also see there is no mention of the fact that the banks had huge assets -- from the article it appears that they only had debts, which is not true. Icemuon (talk) 15:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Ebay Auction

Is this really appropriate material? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.243.229 (talk) 19:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Do a google and check for yourself. A hot news on reuters and yahoo and icenews...all have it. Completely relevant here. --gppande «talk» 20:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Why was this removed again? --gppande «talk» 13:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that this is really appropriate here either. I can see its relevance on the ebay page, but here it seems to trivialize a rather serious issue. --OneCyclone (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Would you please stop adding this trivial joke? Haukur (talk) 16:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I Do not understand - it is one of the most happening news on eBay - Each and every media giant in the world has this news - why can't WP have it??? All major current news articles do have sections like in culture in or in popular media - why can't it be held here....why do you guys delete this - first have a discussion atleast. --gppande «talk» 16:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a trivial joke, it doesn't describe anything real and it doesn't belong here. Haukur (talk) 16:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree, this is not relevant. eBay prank auctions are quite common. Indeed, the IceNews ref. pointed this out. This should not be reintroduced.--A bit iffy (talk) 16:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

All of the news giants have reported on it, I really don't understand why it's being kept out as trivial. Given the near universal interest in it, I think it's really very POV to exclude it based on triviality. Trivial according to who? Not according to dozens of sources. -- AvatarMN (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The news media regularly reports on trivialities which are of no interest to an encyclopedia. Haukur (talk) 20:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

What is your implication? That encyclopedias are better than news media? P to the O to the V, homes. -- AvatarMN (talk) 04:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Russians and money laundering

Is there any reference to the bailout that Russian offered? This Times article suggests it was offered because Russian companies have been using Iceland's lax banking system to launder money - which is why they want stabilise it. Is there any truth in that? Malick78 (talk) 06:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't necessarily suggest that - it may be suggesting that the Russians would like to use the banks in such a way in the future. But it's vaguely worded, perhaps intentionally so. I've never heard this suggested before, my guess is that the author is just offering unfounded speculation. Haukur (talk) 11:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the loan may itself be a laundering operation. Wire 4B in, wire 3B out, enjoy the sunshine. The amount is too small compared to Iceland's financial hole, what good can it make? NVO (talk) 18:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

All the same, €4bn is about what Iceland spent on imports in 2007 (395bn krónur), and more than the foreign reserves of the Central Bank of Iceland (374bn krónur)! Physchim62 (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The loan (if it goes through) is intended to shore up the currency reserves. Nothing else. Haukur (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

It's an Icelandic crisis

Can we try to shift the focus somewhat to the effects in Iceland? Very many people had their money in stock funds, money market funds or some of the other funds operated by the banks - the government won't compensate that. Very many people have lost their life savings and pension funds have been hard hit. Many people are losing their jobs. Many people took loans in a foreign currency to escape the very high interest rates in Iceland - now that the króna has plummeted those people are in severe trouble. From reading the article you could imagine that this crisis was all about British savers. Haukur (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That would indeed improve it. Carry on. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:45, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

True! Two relavant articles: one on 500 Landsbanki employees losing their job [1] and another on newspaper 24 Stundir shut down with 20 jobs lost and dropping domenstics demand for Icelandair [2]. I do not have much time to edit the article itself, but I could point to some possibly useful links.--Michkalas (talk) 17:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

It's work in process. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Kudos to those who have now worked on this! Haukur (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the section on "Other effects within Iceland". However, I think there is still more to be said about further job losses, etc. Maxí (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

title problem

Google "2008 Icelandic financial crisis" and Wikipedia is the only one to use the term. We shouldn't make up a title name and use it as if others also use it. The 2008 Icelandic financial crisis is a crisis involving banks... is not good prose. We need to create a sentence that either uses the title or just don't use the title name in the first sentence. Spevw (talk) 23:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The term "financial crisis" seems to be fairly widely used, and the other alternatives being used in the news media (eg, "financial meltdown") are hardly encyclopedic… Physchim62 (talk) 00:35, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I have Googled the term, and many news articles and other sites appear which are using the terms "financial crisis" and "Iceland(ic)" in the title. The title of the article is also consistent with other related articles, for example 2008 Belgian financial crisis, 2008 Russian financial crisis, Financial crisis of 2007-2008, etc. Maxí (talk) 08:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

{{British-English}}

Is it appropriate to have this template on this article? This is not a particularly British topic, so it is not reasonable to suggest that a preponderance of editors editing this article are British-English users. Also, such a template would suggest that editors should use British-English when editing this article. Where's the precedent for a dictum of that sort? __meco (talk) 07:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)