Russia Buys Iceland 1) the major banks in Iceland had failed. The Icelandic government had rather foolishly, but out of necessity, guarantee *ALL* bank deposits. This had developed prior to this morning. What occurred this morning was the announcement that the banks in question had deposits that ran several times the Icelandic GDP. 1.a) Subsequently, *after* being informed that the EU will not/cannot help them, the Icelandic gov't has turned to Russia for assistance. Russia has agreed to provide the Icelandic gov't with necessary funds of sufficient amount to help them out 'for a few days'.
EU Splinters 2) a meeting in France this morning of the EU official 'finance ministers' was a dud. It was such a dud as to produce a sudden, precipitous change in language around the whole of the EU as a context within our modelspace. This single meeting may be the actual pivotal point for the EU as an organization of nation states. Basically what happened is that the EU politicians in the meeting agreed to take actions which are /were meaningless, such as a 'deposit guarantee' that is now raised, but still is far less than any of the member countries individual deposit guarantees. Thus effectively taking no action at all. Further it is rumored that the attendees of the meeting expressed agreement with the idea of *not* coordinating rate cuts with the Federal Reserve Bank of the USofA. This likely will be seen in the future as *the* moment that the EU began to only crumble back into Europe.
RBS Clearinghouse 'failing' 3) The Royal Bank of Scotland reportedly, this morning, begun seeking a 'recapitalization' so that they may continue their clearinghouse functions. The story coming out via rumors is that RBS is/has run into liquidity issues regarding their ability to handle transactions from other banks. This is also, according to rumor, affecting the currency trades globally. There is now some small substantiation that several of the governmental agencies approached have 'kicked the problem upstairs' as being beyond their ability to accept.
http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm