We've been hearing all about how these Icelanders with all their money have been on a buyout spree all over Scandinavia. Imagine the public reaction if we're then told "uh, dudes, those liberalist superheros on Iceland... Well, they kinda bought our stuff on borrowed money. And, well, now they can't repay. And - uh - need to be bailed out."
Not gonna happen. Nordic solidarity is not nearly as strong as I'd like it to be, even when we're talking justified aid, and our government is taking enough flak for bailing out our own banks without first checking how much it'd cost... I honestly can't see them bail out foreign banks to the tune of a substantial fraction of our GDP.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Seriously though, the Scandinavian banks do not really seem to have insolvency issues, just liquidity issues.
But I might just have to regret what I just said. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
