The first bank, Glitnir, went down on a Monday. Everybody was listening to the radio. I went to the office to speak to my boss about what might happen. I took one look at his face and said: This is not good. And he answered: No, it is not good. I knew the economy was not all right. The big fluctuation in the exchange rate was the first thing we noticed. I was sending money home to Portugal to pay off some debts so I was watching the exchange rate very carefully.
But I was certainly not expecting a collapse. But I would never in a million years have thought all the banks would collapse. So Glitnir went down, and then the next week, both Landsbanki and Kaupthing collapsed in the same week. My wife and I had bought an apartment in summer When the collapse happened I was renovating it — painting the walls, putting in flooring, things like that. We had to stay and fight.
Around the middle of October we started hearing rumours that the company I worked for was in trouble. It was without credit lines, had lost many contracts and would have to lay off a lot of people.
I was a hard worker, I had my own car, put everything in the car and went out to jobs on my own. This happened on the same day that we were moving into our new place. I had all my furniture in the back of the car and was transporting it to my new place when my boss called and told me I was fired. I went to pick up my termination letter with the furniture still in the back of my car. It was the hardest moment of my life. This was a great read, and it only took a few hours.
In the book, the author has requested personal reports from a selection of Icelanders who described how the collapse had affected them personally, and financially. It was indeed heartbreaking to read these reports, and impossible to not feel empathy for these victims.
However it is not just these few people who were affected, in fact, the whole nation and the country suffered because of this event in the history of Iceland.
Up until Iceland had enjoyed good fortunes. Intimate and candid views from working people affected by the Icelandic financial collapse. Interesting, informative, and well-written accounts of this event from people that were on the front lines. The stories are different, but yet the same, and above all still very actual on this present day.
I found that parts of this book got me a bit emotional really. This is another in the excellent series of PBS documentaries in the Frontline strand, dealing with the financial crisis of However, this film comes close to portraying Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury at the time of the meltdown, as a heroic figure.
Others have said that he belongs in jail for the rest of his life for conspiracy and treason. Take your pick. This particular film deals in particular with the collapse of Bear Stearns. One interesting detail revealed here is that the first of Bear Stearns's major clients to go against them publicly as the crisis blew up was, how did you guess, Goldman Sachs.
Now isn't that just the most amazing coincidence. The impression one might get is that Bear Stearns was stitched up and handed over at two cents per share to some folks who were waiting for the pickings. Of course Bear Stearns was run in a crazy fashion, of course they were guilty of bad stuff, but the way it was brought to its knees and handed over to others is just a bit too neat.
But there is no disputing that Paulson is a heroic figure. How could he not be, when he later let Goldman Sachs's main competitor, Lehman Brothers, go down, and then gave huge amounts of tax payers' money to Goldman Sachs. No conflict of interest there, surely. As a Saviour of the Universe, how can we possibly think he is a scoundrel? Lechuguilla 12 July Government, Wall Street, and media insiders give their views on what happened.
Times, an NYU economist, and others. Throughout the one-hour documentary, two men are highlighted as having played critical roles in this financial crisis: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed.
Chairman Ben Bernanke. While Frontline's overall description of events is factual, its analysis is shallow and superficial. Season Episode 8.
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