And finally....on LA opinion and attitudes to Shelter:
old.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Shelter-savaged-for-scaremongering-in-private-rental-sector
"I wish Shelter would simply just belt up!"
"Shelter never thinking ahead as usual but are happy to give out bad advice!!!"
(To Rob Campbell Shelter CEO)
"Stop this nonsense and direct your comments to those who can do something about the 'problem' as you see it.....the government and their tenancy legislation to give landlords protection of their properties if granting longer tenancies. Otherwise go and find a proper job. Until you do one or the other I will give nothing to Shelter."
"Simply another reason for never giving donations to Shelter. What a waste of money commissioning a pointless report which has cost fortunes of donated money. 'Why should tenants have to worry about paying their rent' it states, are they advocating tenants don't pay their rent or maybe the government should support all.
SHELTER YOU MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL"
I don't know what to think tbh. But truly shocked at some these comments.
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And on Iceland.....:
January 10, 2014
www.spiegel.de/international/europe/financial-recovery-of-iceland-a-case-worth-studying-a-942387.html
"What happened in Iceland from 2008 to 2011 is regarded as one of the worst financial crises in history. It seems likely that never before had a country managed to amass such great sums of money per capita, only to lose it again in a short period of time. But Iceland, with a population of just 320,000, has also staged what appears to be the fastest recovery on record. Since 2011, the gross domestic product has been on the rise once again, most recently at 2 percent. What's more, salaries are rising, the national debt is sinking and the government has paid off part of the billions in loans it received in 2008 from the International Monetary Fund ahead of schedule. It's a sign of confidence.
But how did they do it when others cannot? Can we learn something from Iceland?......
...........Iceland's rapid return to health hinged on a series of measures that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman later referred to as "doing an Iceland." Krugman, an admirer of Iceland's dramatic comeback, has recommended a similar policy cocktail for other nations in crisis. The rules are as follows: Allow your ailing banks to collapse; devalue your currency if you have one of your own; introduce capital controls; and try to avoid paying back foreign debts.
That may sound like an extremely self-serving recipe -- and it was. Whereas billions of public money was pumped into the banking system in Ireland so that financial institutions could pay back their creditors, Icelanders voted against this route in two separate referenda. They couldn't see why they should pay for the greed of foreign investors who followed the Siren song of high interest rates to the island nation.
Jónsson only shakes his head wearily when asked if he has a guilty conscience. He claims to have been one of the few who warned of the currency bubble long before it burst. Now, he is excited about the country's new opportunities, which are remarkably similar to the ones it has always had. "A hard-working populace. A healthy democracy. A high level of education. Tourism. Natural resources, such as wind, hydro-power and geothermal energy. (And fisheries. What would we be without the fisheries?)"
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In October last year, The Guardian had something interesting to say:
www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/iceland-financial-recovery-banking-collapse
"Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net," noted Paul Krugman, admiringly. Iceland, he found, had demonstrated the "case for letting creditors of private banks gone wild eat the losses".
Nobel prize winner Joeseph Stilitz agreed. "What Iceland did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future generations with the mistakes of the financial system." For Financial Times economist Martin Wolf too, it was a triumph. "Iceland let the creditors of its banks hang. Ireland did not. Good for Iceland!"...
...."Icelanders are fast on their way back to becoming among the richest people in the world, just five years after experiencing one of the most dramatic financial meltdowns in history."
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The bit where it relates to struggling landlords is explained more clearly in this link:
www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2013/02/20/icelands-stabilized-economy-is-a-surprising-success-story/
"You may have heard about Iceland’s toppling economy back in 2008. As one of the hardest-hit countries at the time, Iceland’s heavily criticized method to escape veritable economic demise actually did the trick.
Faced with the possibility of financial failure, Iceland had to think on its feet. Instead of bailing out banks USA-style, the country forgave mortgage debt for the population – and completely started over from square one."