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It seems like China or Russia would expect to be paid not in dollars, but in Oil Wells and Refineries. Why would they accept restructuring of the debt instead of repo'ing the assets?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously, but $240B is a lot of money for a country with only 9M households, so, around $27K/household. It's an "accomplishment" of sorts to blow up in smoke that much money per household, with nothing to show for it. How the heck did they do that ?
1. Dictator gets loans for his country 2. Dictator puts the money in his Swiss bank account 3. Government is overthrown 4. The populace has to pay off the debt Perhaps him being in custody will lead to some of the money being found and returned.
Smart move to acknowledge this and go for the debt restructuring while the current U.S. president sees Venezuela as his major foreign policy win. The government will be able to leverage that to get the U.S. government to push for far more favorable terms for Venezuela than it ever would have otherwise.
It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. Without even changing the party in power, Trump can pretend Venezuela is reformed and do all of the economic normalization a liberal president never would have gotten away with. But the back-to-back policy disasters are otherwise a good reminder that a broken clock is only right twice a day.
It's almost like people currently in the white house know what they're doing, right? Who would have thought! /s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corruption.
Obviously, but $240B is a lot of money for a country with only 9M households, so, around $27K/household. It's an "accomplishment" of sorts to blow up in smoke that much money per household, with nothing to show for it. How the heck did they do that ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. Without even changing the party in power, Trump can pretend Venezuela is reformed and do all of the economic normalization a liberal president never would have gotten away with. But the back-to-back policy disasters are otherwise a good reminder that a broken clock is only right twice a day.
> It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. It's almost like people currently in the white house know what they're doing, right? Who would have thought! /s
This includes the war with Iran. Double dipping by fueling the military industrial complex blowing it up, then they'll be influencing who gets the contracts for the $300B secured. It makes no sense from a geopolitical standpoint. It makes perfect sense from the perspective of enriching influential persons.
> On top of that comes what is owed to oil companies and suppliers, claims stemming from expropriations under Chávez and the outstanding loans from China and Russia. It seems like China or Russia would expect to be paid not in dollars, but in Oil Wells and Refineries. Why would they accept restructuring of the debt instead of repo'ing the assets?
Smart move to acknowledge this and go for the debt restructuring while the current U.S. president sees Venezuela as his major foreign policy win. The government will be able to leverage that to get the U.S. government to push for far more favorable terms for Venezuela than it ever would have otherwise.
It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. Without even changing the party in power, Trump can pretend Venezuela is reformed and do all of the economic normalization a liberal president never would have gotten away with. But the back-to-back policy disasters are otherwise a good reminder that a broken clock is only right twice a day.
According to the Financial Times, it will be the world’s largest debt restructuring.[a] Venezuela's economy has been a disaster for many years.[b] Surely I'm not the only one wondering: Where did all that borrowed money go? If any of it had been spent to buy goods and services inside Venezuela, it would have led to at least some business formation and activity. Instead, there's only been business destruction and cons…
Their crude is really only valuable to a handful of countries, the US being the main one. They could really not afford to have worsening relations with the US right as the fracking boom took off.
As their domestic industry shrank, they had to import more and more resources from other countries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. Without even changing the party in power, Trump can pretend Venezuela is reformed and do all of the economic normalization a liberal president never would have gotten away with. But the back-to-back policy disasters are otherwise a good reminder that a broken clock is only right twice a day.
> It's really absurd how well the Maduros kidnapping plan worked. It's almost like people currently in the white house know what they're doing, right? Who would have thought! /s
The same applies to some business and personal debt: Sometimes good loans go bad; life has risk; sometimes it's obvious ahead of time. Either way, both parties take on the risk and both are responsible for the outcome. When the creditor is significantly more sophisticated/capable than the debtor - as an extreme example, a credit card company extending credit to someone addicted to gambling - I think the creditor is much more responsible. Another example is Wall Street banks extending credit blindly to real estate investment, causing the 2008 recession.
In government finance, it's a very well-known, well-used tactic for wealthy countries or banks to extend credit to other countries that are unlikely to pay it off (due to limited revenue or competence), eventually giving the creditor significant control of the debtor country. The West used to do it effectively and probably intentionally; China has been doing it more recently. The debtor is starved for capital and won't turn it down; eventually they can't pay and another country has their finger on a trigger at all times: they can call in the loan and bankrupt the debtor at will.