Day of reckoning?

It's becoming almost impossible to keep with events at the moment. I phoned a colleague at around 9.15 this morning to tell him that RBS shares had been suspended. That turned out to be a false rumour but since then both RBS and HBOS shares have lost 40% of their value. This evening it's being reported that all British banks will be partly nationalised. Bank of America is down 19% at the moment but who knows what'll be the situation in ten minutes' time?

Meanwhile I read that Iceland has arranged for a 4 billion Euro loan from Russia.

But read this:

The government of Iceland is using the threat of a €4 bn loan from Russia in exchange for a 99-year lease on the airport at Keflavik - a former American air base - as leverage to obtain financial support from the West.

So perhaps it's not yet a done deal. I suppose one advantage of a Russian takeover of Keflavik would be a cut in the outrageous price of beer in the terminal. That's a joke by the way. More seriously, I recall reading a thriller in which WW3 starts with a Soviet "container ship" running aground on Iceland and out of it emerges troops and tanks who promptly defeat the Americans and take over the US anti-submarine base. Needless to say the good guys won in that case. Now? I haven't a clue, except to say that von Mises must be laughing in his grave.