Too bad, I actually know a bit about Ian. Tough spot. Right now RSX is costing 25-30% interest for me.
On the “justified war front”, here was a great gaffe.
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Freudian slippage of the tongue?
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That was probably the most honest thing I’ve ever seen GWB admit. It sounds like he did mumble “Iraq too” right after.
Musing on the Russian rubles and how they’ve been holding up pretty well in spite of the western sanctions.
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Factor #2 is what did it. If Russians and Russian businesses were actually allowed to buy other currencies with their Rubles, I doubt it would stay as strong. They effectively control all Ruble trade and could set the rate to whatever they want. They could say 1 ruble costs 2 dollars. Their exports are already hurting, so what does it matter.
The smart money, and congressmen/staff have already invested in defense contractors, but there may be more …
The war sanctions look like they’ve finally taken down a corrupt, long time government. Just wasn’t the Russians.
Sri Lanka is now almost without gasoline and faces an acute shortage of other fuels as well.
They threw the country into chaos too, and without outside aid, I suspect people start starving before the end of the year.
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Sri Lanka was heading to bankruptcy way before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Their foreign reserves were so low over a year ago, the corrupt leaders forced “organic farming” on the entire country, as they couldn’t afford imported fertilizers.
Some more context here:
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nice compilation of MSM coverage, with some unmentioned facts added as they go
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What idiots? Just ask the fore-squad – Raise Taxes on the Rich!!
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While we’re at (undeclared) war with Russia, they’re making another $100M in payments to our lenders.
They sure are doing a good job of making any upcoming “default” look like the US’s fault and not theirs.
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RUSSIAN ROUBLE EXTENDS GAINS, FIRMS MORE THAN 6% ON THE DAY PAST 59 VS EURO, ITS STRONGEST SINCE JUNE 2015
Meanwhile, Turkey figures they can get away with anything given their NATO veto, so why not take some extra territory. Surely Biden will care as little about the Kurds as his predecessor.
prepare for new anti-terror operations to secure areas with a depth of 30 kms along Türkiye’s southern borders.
You know, Russia should have just declared a “safe zone” in Eastern Ukraine, instead of a “special military operation”. It sounds like a nice “safe space”, and who can be against those these days?
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Food impacts
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Amazing stuff
Bankrupt them! by a technicality if you can’t do it with actual sanctions.
- Treasury to Block U.S. Investors From Receiving Russian Debt Payments
- Sanctions Carve-Out Had Allowed Payments Until May 25
- Treasury Announced Tuesday It Will Allow Carve-Out to Expire
- Decision Could Push Russia to Default on Its Debts in Summer
Who cares about American creditors? Not their government. Clearly Dear Leader must be thinking that letting Russia give some of its money to us is somehow helping them and hurting us.
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Maybe they’ll again allow them to pay after the default triggers some kind of automatic borrowing cost increase. No?
No, they just want them to “default” to look bad, but then western lenders will get nothing for years or ever. Not that anyone who cares about their official credit rating would lend new money to them currently anyway.
The Russian Finance Ministry said it has sent the interest payments to Russia’s national securities depository to be sent on to bondholders. But the payments will need to pass through a number of financial intermediaries before Moscow can be said to have fulfilled its obligations to creditors.
Those include correspondent banks, agent banks and clearinghouses—such as Citigroup Inc. and Euroclear—all of which are based outside Russia. Previous bond payments made by the Kremlin since the Ukraine war began have been held up at intermediaries because of complications from sanctions.
The payments announced Friday carry a due date of May 27—after the exemption is likely to expire. Russia, however, faces approximately $235 million in payments due under some of its dollar-denominated bonds on June 23, and an additional $159 million due June 24.
The U.S. has been steadily tightening Russia’s ability to stay current on its foreign bonds since the invasion of Ukraine. Russia hasn’t defaulted on its external debt since the aftermath of the 1918 Communist revolution.
In further evidence they’re willing to pay, to the extent we let them, this morning they announced payments would be available in rubles (which would probably still count as a default under some debt terms, which call for payment in USD).
*RUSSIA TO CONTINUE SERVICING USD DEBTS IN RUBLES: MINISTRY
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Meanwhile our sanctions are giving China cheap energy, as they buy up Russian oil and we pay high prices in order to “hurt Russia”.
Who pays the price? The rest of the world who can’t afford those high prices.
Ukraine-Russia war is fueling triple crisis in poor nations . Crises in food, fuel and finance caused or worsened by the war in Ukraine threaten to stoke unrest in poorer countries and push dozens of them into default, global business and humanitarian leaders warned this week at the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum.
The three interrelated crises—caused or worsened by the war in Ukraine—have come into focus during this week’s meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, making it one of the gloomier annual gatherings in its more than 50 years.
High inflation and interest rates could push more than 70 countries into default, according to Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Program. They would follow Sri Lanka, which recently became the first Asian country to default on its debt this century amid protests that turned violent and led to the collapse of the government.
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Just to follow up, our sanctions have destroyed about $20B in western held assets with these bond sanctions. You were getting paid in full before, now you’re lucky to get $0.10 on your dollar, and maybe nothing in a default depending on how the war goes.
Russia had approximately $39 billion in outstanding foreign currency bonds at the end of 2021, of which approximately half were in the hands of foreigners, according to JPMorgan research. Those bonds currently trade around 10 to 20 cents on the dollar, a level they have traded at since around the end of February.
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I’m pretty sure that somewhere here, back on day one, I suggested that someone was going to do exactly that.
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