Banks' irresponsible lending is making people paranoid.Given that the British government froze the assets of Iceland's banks, here's a conspiracy theory that is not entirely implausible.

A foreign owned bank subsidiary is covered by the Irish government's guarantee of loans to it. As the subsidiary becomes insolvent,the foreign parent company loans it billions in nominal euro values of financial derivatives mortgages and other toxic assets that are worth only a few cents on the euro. After the subsidiary's bankruptcy is declared,the Irish government is legally obliged to pay back the parent at 100c on the Euro. This is a hypothetical simplistic situation but a real financial transfer of assets would be a lot more sophisticated and opaque to conceal the crime.