February 12, 2016

Even though there is hunger, could Venezuela be servicing religiously its debt because of who the bondholders are?

Sir, even though Venezuela is suffering lack of food and medicines, it is doing all it can to pay its foreign bondholders. Andres Schipani quotes Bank of America’s Francisco Rodriguez in that “Venezuela could continue paying bondholders for longer than it keeps paying Maduro’s salary”, “Maduro’s Venezuela on the brink of default" February 12.

Could it be that all these bondholders are in fact the same usual local friends of the government and who in these bonds have just found another way to further exploit this poor-rich country? I mean it is hard to visualize any ordinary reasonably responsible investor, no matter how big the spreads, putting money in Venezuelan bonds while knowing without doubt that the resources raised by debt will be wasted just the same way as the greatest oil-boom in history has been wasted.

The world needs a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) but, for that to serve us citizens any useful purpose, and not even be counterproductive, it must begin by establishing clearly the differences between bona fide lending and odious credit.

@PerKurowski ©