“The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis.”
“A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region’s economy to its knees.”
“Scandinavia’s bank rescue proved successful and is now a model for central bankers, unlike Japan’s drawn-out response, where ailing banks were propped up in a half-public limbo for years.”
I have no idea what definition they are using for the word ‘succesful’. Finland paid 61 billion marks in direct support and 28.3 billion marks in guarantees. 37.3 billions marks paid in direct support were never recovered. And it should be noted that the GDP of Finland in 1991 was 85.7 billion marks, so you start to see the disaster that the whole bank bailout project was. The economy didn’t properly recover until the end of the 90’s and left a considerable population into long-term unemployment.
Admittedly, I was a kid then, but I do remember quite vividly how both my parents lost their jobs a week or two a part. And I also remember scouring ditches for bottles to get a little money for milk. And I still know people who haven’t worked a for more than a week since those times. Though these days they look more like ghosts than people.
Good times.