Iceland

luvpump

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/3129742/Kaupthing-dumps-leveraged-investors.html

LucyTheDwarf

Better safe than sorry? What would you be sorry for? you had 20K in there - even if the worst did happen, you'd get it all back... All you people withdrawing money, you are each adding one small piece of straw to the camel's back.

EalingSaver

Plasticman wrote: »

Some of the posts on this thread remind me of 1999 and the Y2K 'bug'. Planes will be falling from the sky, it's the end of society as we know it, we're all doomed (etc etc).

I know what you mean but....given an opp to post on something other than financial doom and gloom...

Billions were spent on Y2K revamps of systems. For sure, a good deal of money was made by companies and spent by others where there may have not been a need, bouyed by scare stories of what could happen.

However as an IT person who is a bit long in the tooth (and who DIDN'T make any money on the back of Y2K), I'm far from convinced that this was a non-story. Knowing how long many computer systems (the software, not the hardware) have been around; how 'shortcuts' were taken when programming/building these systems, in many cases for good reasons - e.g. computer memory used to be a scarce/expensive commidity - and in some cases just because it was an immature industry; and in other cases simply because people didn't expect their software to have the 'lifetime' that it ended up having... I am of the view that on balance the whole Y2K escapade is actually a success story i.e. one of potential chaos (and possibly, but not necessarily, of potential tragedy) avoided because the industry recognised a problem and took action.

Was the economic cost of adverting worth the benefit? Who knows, as in the event there was no major major disruptions (though I wouldn't be surprised if there were some we never found out about, simply beacuse systems were switched down over the 'rollover'). We will never know.

But I know one thing for sure (picking up on one of your specifics). I certainly had no intention of ever ever being in the air over the rollover, or of being in close proximity to an airport, nuclear power station etc. A miscalculation of interest on a bank account I would have smiled at and dealt with...

Remember, Ariane 5 first launch went up in smoke (or rather dived into the ground). Thats a multi multi million pound development, carry8ing a mulit million pound payload, which nose dived, literally, because some programmer put a + sign where there should have been a - sign (or vice versa). I also have an abiding memory of a film of a test flight of a jet fighter which as it was coming into land, maybe 10's, max 100 feet off the ground, the thing did a 180 degree rolll so that it was upside down. Another +/- sign problem.

Now expand that to the number of systems in the world that had been built over the years predicated on a 2 digit date being all that was required. Who the hell knew what was going to happen?

luvpump

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

Better safe than sorry? What would you be sorry for? you had 20K in there - even if the worst did happen, you'd get it all back... All you people withdrawing money, you are each adding one small piece of straw to the camel's back.

"you'd get it all back" says who ?? you ??, So how long would it take Lucy ? Would it be in my new account the day after ?? Aweek after ? A Month after ?? ... read my original post again ....no one knows & neither do you .

FraudBuster

Plasticman wrote: »

Some of the posts on this thread remind me of 1999 and the Y2K 'bug'. Planes will be falling from the sky, it's the end of society as we know it, we're all doomed (etc etc).

I would prefer a comparison to the dot com bubble.

All bubbles eventually burst.

LucyTheDwarf

Does it matter how long it would take? If a bank holding my money collapsed, and I got my money back in 6 months, I'd be happy... especially if it was enough to buy more than a loaf of bread, by that time.

And, reading your post again, I'll take issue with point 4. It's not just Iceland, sitting on it's own. It would have the support of the other Nordic countries, Norway, Finland, Sweden etc. Just stop panicking for goodness sake. If you want to withdraw money, fine, but stop rallying others to do so also.

And point 5: It's still protected up to 35k, to be increased to 50k, even under the passport scheme.

Plasticman

EalingSaver wrote: »

However as an IT person who is a bit long in the tooth (and who DIDN'T make any money on the back of Y2K), I'm far from convinced that this was a non-story. Knowing how long many computer systems (the software, not the hardware) have been around; how 'shortcuts' were taken when programming/building these systems, in many cases for good reasons - e.g. computer memory used to be a scarce/expensive commidity - and in some cases just because it was an immature industry; and in other cases simply because people didn't expect their software to have the 'lifetime' that it ended up having... I am of the view that on balance the whole Y2K escapade is actually a success story i.e. one of potential chaos (and possibly, but not necessarily, of potential tragedy) avoided because the industry recognised a problem and took action.

As another IT person who is not too long in the tooth (but did make a bit of cash out of Y2K) I know that there were plenty of systems which were vulnerable. I also know that - once the 'crisis' story hit the news - most software and hardware suppliers dealt with the problem. But "things are in hand and will probably be fine" didn't make a good news story. Panic set in and many people were even building up a stock of food 'just in case'. The difference between Y2K and the current financial crisis is that Y2K only resulted in a big bill and some very busy shops. With this financial crisis people have the potential to cause major damage through their actions.

For info (and as a complete aside!), the 18 months that I spent testing IT systems for Y2K compliance was mostly wasted. Suppliers had already most of the systems that I tested - I only found one with a vulnerability and that would only have resulted in some inaccurate data being recorded on an admin system. In fact, the work resulted in systems being taken out of service for testing which caused disruption and in one case that I was involved in (thankfully not one of mine!) caused the loss of 3 months data.

Bu**ered up my new years eve too as I had to work 'just in case' - maybe that's why I don't have very fond memories of it!!!

southcoastsounds

I've only just joined this forum, and mainly to keep a track on savings news, particularly after hearing a report on Radio 5's Through the Night on the perilous state of finances in Iceland.

I would suggest anyone worried about their savings should read yesterday's BBC news report

Personally I'd rather hold my savings in a British Bank on the basis that the host nation is more likely to put its national investors first in the event of meltdown.

Tom

opinions4u

southcoastsounds wrote: »

I've only just joined this forum, and mainly to keep a track on savings news, particularly after hearing a report on Radio 5's Through the Night on the perilous state of finances in Iceland.

I would suggest anyone worried about their savings should read yesterday's BBC news report

Personally I'd rather hold my savings in a British Bank on the basis that the host nation is more likely to put its national investors first in the event of meltdown.

Tom

Interesting views about Iceland joning the Euro in that article. There's a thread on here about the UK possibly being forced to do the same.

Price of cod may come down if Iceland joins the EU!

Count_Dante

The article also says that the credit rating of Iceland is also falling. I think if Iceland did default, British savers are unlikely to be head of the queue when it comes to compensation.