Sweden beats USA and Germany as the least likely to default on its bonds but at the other end of the global sovereign risk spectrum lie two socialist utopias - Venezuela (CDS just shy of 6000bps) and Greece (CDS around 1800bps) are the nations most likely to default.
Authored by Robert Evans, originally posted at Cracked.com,
We like apocalypse fantasies because a part of us thinks it would be kind of fun. No bills to pay, no job to drag yourself to -- life goes back to basics. You don't watch The Hunger Games and really think about what it would be like to have a toothache or yeast infection you can't treat. And you certainly don't think of it as something that can actually occur.
Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,
Things are turning increasingly ugly in Venezuela between President Maduro and the opposition MUD. The core political problem after December 2015 elections is the PSUV are now using the courts to neuter any opposition voices that formally hold a legislative majority to start holding the government to account.
As noted earlier, among the catalysts for the overnight leg higher in oil was a statement by Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino who triggered the headline-scanning algos yesterday when he said, during a television broadcast on TeleSur, that oil producing countries were discussing a March meeting site (which apparently is sufficient to instill confidence in future cuts), and that Venezuela, Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are planning to meet in July. He added that "There’s no capacity to continue putting oil on the market.
Late last month, we brought you the latest from Barclays on Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro’s socialist paradise is rapidly collapsing in the face of falling oil prices.
“The economic emergency decree and any measures that the government could take at this point may be too late,” the bank declared. “After two years of inaction and the recent decline in oil prices, a credit event in 2016 is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.”