Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
After fifty years of imposing embargoes and other sanctions, the United States never managed to topple Cuba's communist regime.
After forty years of the same in Iran, the US met with similar amounts of success.
Ongoing sanctions against North Korea have not toppled to regime there.
But, some people in Washington won't let decades of failure dissuade them.
Authored by Saxo Bank's head of macro analysis Christopher Dembik via TradingFloor.com,
A Venezuelan default is only a matter of time.
While debt servicing has been a government priority, declining external liquidity and a deteriorating domestic situation (three-digit hyperinflation, shortages, and a political crisis between the government and the National Assembly) make it a daunting task.
By 2020, the country must repay 30% of the external debt due to expire in the next 23 years.
Authored by Rene Chun via The Atlantic,
Hyperinflation has driven thousands to seek out unorthodox currency.
After being effectively shut out from global financial markets – a situation that was made more precarious by US sanctions prohibiting purchases of Venezuelan debt (unless you’re buying them off Goldman Sachs, should the bank’s asset-management arm desire to liquidate its $3 billion “hunger bond” position) – Venezuela is drawing ever-nearer to what the Financial Times describes as potentially the “messiest debt restructuring in history.”
According to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, coupled with MarineTraffic real-time tracking, at least 25 tankers carrying almost 17 million barrels of imported crude oil are drifting near Texas and Louisiana ports, unable to offload because of closures from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Source: MarineTraffic