Iceland’s Debt-Relief Lessons For Eurozone – 21 August 2012

Instead of mass foreclosures and bankruptcies, southern Europe would do well to follow Iceland’s example

Iceland was hit by a perfect financial storm in October 2008.

As recession deepens across southern Europe, stories abound of indebted firms and households being forced to hand over ownership of their assets to their creditors.

For example, a recent report in Der Spiegel tells of a Spanish bank that evicted from his home a now unemployed man, previously earning less than €1,000 a month. The bank had happily lent him €240,000. Read the whole story at : http://www.guardian.co.uk link to original article

• Thorolfur Matthiasson is professor of economics at the University of Iceland and member of a parliament-appointed committee overseeing equality of treatment in debt writedowns by the Icelandic financial sector.

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Thorolfur Matthiasson