I should have put things in a more nuanced fashion.
But the point is that there was no "let the debts fall on the floor, start afresh" action.
And yes, a lot of international stuff was left hanging but as other posters have mentioned, the UK and other central banks stepped in for a lot of consumer-level deposits.
Some portion of speculators were left hanging by the US response to the crisis too. Wow!
My main point is there was many differences in detail but no really fundamental difference between the US response to the crisis and the Icelandic one. Both supported their banks in the main because they had, at least to maintain their existing money-economy.
Part of this is that anyone on Facebook or similar sites is going to see a steady stream of factoids about how Iceland wasn't "fooled by the bankers", I'm responding to such rot.
Also, all the state created entities were eventually returned to private hands, pretty much the same private hands.
I should have put things in a more nuanced fashion.
But the point is that there was no "let the debts fall on the floor, start afresh" action.
And yes, a lot of international stuff was left hanging but as other posters have mentioned, the UK and other central banks stepped in for a lot of consumer-level deposits.
Some portion of speculators were left hanging by the US response to the crisis too. Wow!
My main point is there was many differences in detail but no really fundamental difference between the US response to the crisis and the Icelandic one. Both supported their banks in the main because they had, at least to maintain their existing money-economy.
Part of this is that anyone on Facebook or similar sites is going to see a steady stream of factoids about how Iceland wasn't "fooled by the bankers", I'm responding to such rot.
Also, all the state created entities were eventually returned to private hands, pretty much the same private hands.