An entire nation without immediate experience or even distant memory of high finance had gazed upon the example of Wall Street and said, “We can do that.” For a brief moment it appeared that they could. In 2003, Iceland’s three biggest banks had assets of only a few billion dollars, about 100 percent of its gross domestic product. Over the next three and a half years they grew to over $140 billion and were so much greater than Iceland’s G.D.P. that it made no sense to calculate the percentage of it they accounted for. It was, as one economist put it to me, “the most rapid expansion of a banking system in the history of mankind.”
testing
That was fascinating, Kendall. Thanks for the link.
[blockquote]“the most rapid expansion of a banking system in the history of mankind.†[/blockquote]
It’s the old warning writ large, if a system sounds to good to be true, it probably is.