Iceland is bankrupt, the Icelandic Krona has collapsed ands remains frozen, and the economy has ground to a halt under the weight of the estimated $100 billion of credit crisis debt as a consequence of the collapse of the countries banks that is far higher than the countries pre-crash GDP of $14 billion. The country is now reliant on strings attached loans to be able to function as an economy to enable it to import goods and services. Whilst Britain is a long way from a similar fate, however all of the ingredients are there in that Britain has a more or less bankrupt banking sector, with liabilities far beyond the states ability to guarantee without a loss of confidence in all UK debt and a collapse in the currency. I.e. the bailed out RBS alone has liabilities of <b>£2 trillion</b>, and a asset gap of at least £600 billion, therefore in a worse case scenario would require a huge amount of loans and guarantees far beyond the pin-pricks to date seen in the £90 billion to Northern Rock and £40 billion of Bradford and Bingley. The Bank of England is the lender of last resort so as to prevent bank runs, however what happens <b>when the BoE is required to lend £5 trillion as a last resort?</b> The answer is currency collapse followed by hyper inflation. Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7526.html
I always thought that if time travel were possible it would be neat to visit the Dark Ages, among other times. Looks like I may get my wish after all.