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How Iceland Went From Codfish to Meltdown
How Iceland Went From Codfish to Meltdown
ANALYSIS

How Iceland Went From Codfish to Meltdown

Country built a huge financial bubble based on a vulnerable currency

(Newser) - How did a chilly nation of cod fishermen play a key role in the world's crumbling financial markets? Seeking to avoid the boom-and-bust of fish catch, Iceland started by privatizing banks in the mid-1990s. It built a colossal banking system on a puny currency and attracted international deposits with high...

Crisis Makes Former Skeptics Rethink Euro

From Poland to Iceland, once-resistant nations want to join up

(Newser) - When the euro was first proposed, skeptics cautioned of the dangers of an integrated system during a time of crisis. Now that the crisis is here, the euro has performed relatively well while smaller currencies have plunged in an investor "flight to quality." As the New York ...

Russia Drops $5.4B on Iceland's Imploding Economy

Nordic nation pegs exchange rates, nationalizes another bank

(Newser) - Iceland is in talks to receive a $5.43 billion loan from Russia to stave off economic collapse, as the tiny Nordic country nationalized yet another bank and fixed its currency's to the euro. An oversized banking system has left Iceland dangerously exposed to market gyrations, and the prime minister...

Could the Credit Crunch Sink a Whole Country?

Iceland frets about collapse as interest rates spike to 15%

(Newser) - The global credit crisis has spelled disaster for banks and hedge funds, but now worry is mounting that an entire country could go under. Yesterday the central bank of Iceland was forced to raise its interest rate 1.25 percentage points to 15% at an emergency meeting, reports the Financial ...

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