Not to put too fine a point on it.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, Icelandic prime minister, on revelations in an April 12 report on the causes of the collapse of all the nation's banks in the 2008-09 global financial meltdown:

The private banks failed, the supervisory system failed, the administration failed...and the ideology of an unregulated free market utterly failed.

The collateral damage extends to every adult in tiny Iceland (pop. approximately 250,000), whom Britain and other nations are calling on to make whole offshore depositors assiduously courted by go-go Icelandic bankers, who have since lost their deposits and other funds held by the failed Icelandic banks. This is quite impossible, since the outstanding sum exceeds the entire economy of Iceland.