Quote:
Originally Posted by competentone
As for "the greed of Americans" causing Iceland's bankruptcy -- I don't follow that argument. They are the ones who borrowed the money which they can't pay back now.
If I understand their situation correctly, Iceland's collapse is more like a "micro example" of what will be happening in the U.S.. Everyone, including the government, got too deep in debt and finally the whole system just collapses.
|
Quote:
But the whole system was built on a shaky foundation of foreign debt.
The country's top four banks now hold foreign liabilities in excess of $100 billion, debts that dwarf Iceland's gross domestic product of $14 billion.
|
I admit not knowing the details of Iceland's financial collapse, but according to the story, there's a large component of the current international financial crisis contributing to the events in Iceland. It doesn't sound like Iceland would be in this predicament right now, if it weren't for the events triggered by the credit meltdown that we've got going on right now (and which seems to have kicked off a domino-effect throughout most of the world, as well). So while we Americans aren't guilty of everything going on in Iceland and the rest of the world, we're certainly a significant contributing factor to others' troubles. At least that's my understanding and reasoning. (Not necessarily guaranteed to be right, mind you.) My definition of American greed refers to not only those individuals in America that have borrowed to buy houses they couldn't afford, but also our financial institutions' betting the collective farm on risky investment strategies based upon those now-failing home loans.