Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

euronews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 111 posts

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#61

Post by kipchak »

rurp wrote: post #50
sourcegrift wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like him or hate him, Venezuela has been quite literally a fabulous win.

Fabulous win in what ways, and for who? I'm genuinely asking, as I haven't followed the country much. From what I have read the same corrupt repressive regime, the one that ran the country into the ground, is still in place while the democratic opposition that had shown some life in recent years has gone silent.

The pro argument I find most convincing is that the US's interest is mostly in restricting oil going from Venezuela to China, which previously was the majority destination of of Venezuela's imports. A similar case can be made for Iran.

China possibly expecting something to this effect has recently built up both it's coal and renewables capacity, as well as an extremely large SPR.

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#62

Post by ErneX »

cs702 wrote: post #2

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…

It’s not only the money borrowed, it was also the biggest oil windfall it ever had during the Chavez early years.

Where did it go? They stole it.

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#63

Post by marcosdumay »

plorg wrote: post #59
mullingitover wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba just...gave up last week[1]. Wasn't even above-the-fold news. There'd be no point in any kind of boots on the ground invasion when they just did the thing that the invasion would've tried to accomplish. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/cuba-passes-sweeping-free...

That assumes the point of invading Cuba is to do liberal market reforms. If the goal is either to expropriate resources or just throw chum to the Florida voters in an election year then it's still on the table.

Does the current US government have goals?

Or rather, any goal that is not media and PR management?

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#64

Post by ErneX »

cs702 wrote: post #11
hungryhobbit wrote: post #3

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 ?

They caused a 9 million people exodus on a country with about 30 million people. It’s difficult to find a similar case of mismanagement and corruption at the level it happened in Venezuela.

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#65

Post by mlmonkey »

Such a shame that a country with the world's largest proven oil reserves is so much in debt and poverty.

Lesson for the rest of the world is: you go against the USA, prepare to suffer.

Of course, s/USA/China/ or s/USA/Russia/ above in a few years time.

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#66

Post by victorbjorklund »

fennecbutt wrote: post #52
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> economic normalization You mean the looting

Well what would you do if someone owed you 240b? Debt collectors don't exist where you come from?

Are you saying that Trump will give the money to the creditors? Including non-Americans?

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#67

Post by marcosdumay »

pphysch wrote: post #46
legitster wrote: post #14

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 way too early to declare total victory. US also swiftly deposed Chavez, but Chavismo came roaring back. Maduro himself is unlikely to escape his abduction, but the actual power structures and grassroots opposition to Washington's totalitarianism remains across LatAm.

The entire situation in Venezuela was only sustainable because of their relation to the US. It's the same for Cuba, by the way.

If the US normalize their relation¹, a totalitarian government will have a much harder time there.

1 - As in "relates to it like a normal country". Treating it like an extractivist colony won't do.

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#68

Post by dist-epoch »

They should do an Argentina.

Every 10 years or so Argentina defaults on it's debt. The next day banks/hedge funds line up to loan it money again.

The ways of finance are mysterious.

> The country has defaulted on external sovereign debt nine times since independence: in 1827, 1890, 1951, 1956, 1982, 1989, 2001, 2014, and 2020. Three of those defaults occurred since the year 2001.

https://maseconomics.com/argentinas-recurrent-defaults-a-cas...

Re: Venezuela reveals $240B in debt it cannot pay (~$100B more than expected)

#70

Post by ErneX »

joenot443 wrote: post #35
55555 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think there's a Swiss bank account in the world with room for $240b. There's no doubt Maduro enjoyed some taste of the froth, but this is a silly oversimplification.

Corruption at every level of government. Everybody was getting a piece of it. Add to that mismanagement, stupid subsidies. Plus they had a huge oil windfall during the early Chavez years. All that money is gone, I wish it was just the money that was borrowed from abroad.

They also spent billions to influence the elections of the other countries of the region. Chavez was also giving away oil for free in exchange of political support abroad. He even gave free oil for the buses of London because the mayor at the time was in good relations or something.

Post reply on HN