Most of the stuff said in here is correct, and clearly people who actually have an idea of how the economy works have contributed, most of what I was going to say has been said. However, people saying that the people who have put their money into icelandic banks were taking a risk and therefore don't deserve to have their money reimbursed?! what the hell are you on about?! The whole reason people put money into banks is because they want no-risk growth. In general, when markets are everything except as shocking as they are now, investing in the FTSE100 will always realise more gain than slapping your money in a bank at 6% interest. Some people though, mainly those facing retirement within the next 5 years, want nothing more than to know their money is safe, they could not afford to retire without their savings intact. There was a women on the news yesterday who had £100,000 in Icesave, her words: "I didn't want to risk investing my money in the FTSE100, I wanted my money to be safe so I just put it in a bank account" - which was absolutely the right thing to do. I don't quite understand where this whole "icelandic banks are dodgey they should have known that" or "if they're offering silly rates they must be in trouble"...for starters less than 6 months ago nobody was even talking about which banks were dodgey and which weren't, let alone thinking about which were protected. Secondly these icelandic bank's products aren't even the most competitive products on the market anyway!! the only market leader is Kaupthings regular saver. So for god sake depositers were not stupid in any way shape or form! And yes I do think they should have their cash replaced by mine and other tax payers money.