Posted by Michael Laprarie
An unbelievable story, the source of which appeared to be a single Spanish-language news broadcast, made the blogosphere rounds yesterday: Iceland is forgiving nearly all of its citizens’ mortgage debt!
According to the report, the government of Iceland “put politicians and bankers on the bench of the accused” in response to the public outcry after the near-collapse of Iceland’s banking system and an embarrassing bailout by the IMF in 2008. The context of the report implies that the cancellation of debt (and, presumably, the forced disposal or write-off of mortgage-based bank assets by the government) was done as a sort of punishment for the irresponsible fiscal policies of the banks. The report lauds the actions of the Iceland government as “a very different way from the one chosen by the rest of Europe to overcome the crisis.”
Hmmm … “different” for sure. And mostly untrue. Here’s a more accurate picture of Iceland’s debt restructuring program: “IMF Says Targeted Debt Reduction Policies Can Work”
Continue reading the article . . .
