Suffocating Venezuela

[goldenequity]

This is how to make America great.
Increase the impoverishment of suffering millions.
It's worked so well in the past.



Venezuela Bonds Tumble On Report U.S. To Ban Trading
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...-block-trading

Venezuela bonds are tumbling after the WSJ reported
that the US government was considering a ban on trading in the country's debt.
The unprecedented move would temporarily ban U.S.-regulated financial institutions
from buying and selling dollar-denominated bonds issued by the Republic of Venezuela
and state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela.

[r3volution 3.0]

This is how to make America great.
Increase the impoverishment of suffering millions.
It's worked so well in the past.



Venezuela Bonds Tumble On Report U.S. To Ban Trading
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...-block-trading

Venezuela bonds are tumbling after the WSJ reported
that the US government was considering a ban on trading in the country's debt.
The unprecedented move would temporarily ban U.S.-regulated financial institutions
from buying and selling dollar-denominated bonds issued by the Republic of Venezuela
and state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela.

That a socialist state won't be able to borrow and spend as much doesn't bother me in the slightest.

If our own debt-addled semi-socialist state were dependent on foreign bond markets, I'd be rooting for it to be cut off too.

[goldenequity]

First of all
anyone buying Venezuelan bonds is an idiot...
and that's the MARKET working (cruel though it may be)
not
to be confused with the OP
which is intervention
and twisted self-righteous sadism intending the agony.

It's about an attitude of mercy vs self righteous judgement.
1Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come:
but woe unto him, through whom they come!
2It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea,
than that he should offend one of these little ones.
3Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him;
and if he repent, forgive him.
4And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee,
saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.

Some countries have it. Some don't.
Some people have it. Some don't.
We used to.

[angelatc]

First of all
anyone buying Venezuelan bonds is an idiot...
and that's the MARKET working (cruel though it may be)
not
to be confused with the OP
which is intervention

Yep.

[oyarde]

Seriously , who is buying Venezuelan bonds ?

[TheCount]

And yet Trump just said that his policy is not changing foreign governments or spreading democracy anymore.

[r3volution 3.0]

First of all
anyone buying Venezuelan bonds is an idiot...
and that's the MARKET working (cruel though it may be)
not
to be confused with the OP
which is intervention

Regulating the sale of government bonds isn't intervention in the market, since government bonds are not a market phenomenon in the first place.

Similarly, it wouldn't be a market intervention to prohibit the Russian mob from incorporating and listing itself on the NYSE.

[goldenequity]

Regulating the sale of government bonds isn't intervention in the market, since government bonds are not a market phenomenon in the first place.
Similarly, it wouldn't be a market intervention to prohibit the Russian mob from incorporating and listing itself on the NYSE.

'Bond Market'?





Bond yields ARE determined in and by the market place.

The 'mafia' incorporated could issue 'Corporate' bonds only
not Government bonds.

By any stretch of definition it amounts to a 'blockade'.
Tell me how a blockade is not an intervention.
Let it go... I'm not interested in arguing minutia of what the definition of 'is' is.
cheers.

[r3volution 3.0]

Bond yields ARE determined in and by the market place.

I didn't say otherwise.

My point is ethical; individuals have rights, states do not.

If the US were to prohibit Jose Caracas from borrowing money on US territory, this would violate his rights.

If the US prohibits the Venezuelan state from borrowing money on US territory, no one's rights are violated.

[Zippyjuan]

Trump administration actions may be trying to encourage the state to fail.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...d-state-latin/

Mike Pence warns that Venezuela is at risk of becoming 'a failed state'

Venezuela is at risk of becoming a failed state, the vice-president of the United States has warned, as he visited Latin America to tell them that the Washington “will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles.”

Mike Pence, speaking in Colombia on Monday on the first leg of a four-nation Latin American tour, said that the US was concerned that Venezuela could suck the region into a vortex of instability.

On Friday President Donald Trump caused astonishment and alarm by suggesting for the first time that he was considering military intervention in Venezuela, to quell four months of protests against the rule of President Nicolas Maduro.

The Pentagon said quickly that no plans for invasion had been drawn up, and most analysts believe it is highly unlikely that Washington would order its troops into the South American nation, beyond with a possible peacekeeping force.

But Mr Pence described his boss as “a leader who says what he means and means what he says.”

“A failed state in Venezuela threatens the security and prosperity of our entire hemisphere and the people of the United States of America,” he said, adding that a void in Venezuelan leadership would allow drug trafficking to flourish and spark a surge in illegal migration.

“It's extraordinary to think that one of the wealthiest countries in South America would now be collapsing into dictatorship and poverty and deprivation,” he said.

US sanctions could accelerate a collapse and that "vortex of instability".

[goldenequity]

I'm just going to post this and not say another damn word about 'ethics'



Putin Pays Off Russia’s Outstanding Debt To Central Banks
https://newspunch.com/putin-russia-debt-banks/

Initially, it was assumed the USSR’s foreign debt would be paid by all its republics. A document on this was to be signed in December 1991. The bulk of the debt was on Russia (61.34 percent). Ukraine was to repay 16.37 percent, and Belarus was to repay 4.13 percent.

However, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan did not sign the agreement. As a result, in 1994 Russia took on all the debt in exchange for property all around the former Soviet Union.

When relations with Russia deteriorated in 2014, Kiev threatened to nationalize Russian property within Ukraine. At the time, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded Ukraine it owes $20 billion in Soviet-era debt and if Kiev raises this question, Moscow can demand repayment.

As of 1994, the debt of the old USSR was almost $105 billion. The largest part of this amount (over $47 billion) was to the Paris Club of creditors. It was a pool of 19 creditors, mostly in the West including the US and the UK.

Russia actively began to repay debts under the presidency of Vladimir Putin, which also coincided with a surge in oil prices, giving the country extra foreign currency.

One of the final large Soviet-era debts was repaid last year to Kuwait. Russia paid $1.1 billion and delivered $620 million worth of high-tech products to the country.

Russia forgave debt owed to USSR

At the same time, Russia has written off a large part of the debt developing countries owed it. In 2014, Russia forgave more than $30 billion in debt owed by Cuba, which accounted for 90 percent of the total liabilities. The remaining debt, amounting to $3.5 billion, will be paid off within ten years in 20 equal installments.

Russia also wrote off Iraq’s debt of $21.5 billion, Mongolia ($11.1 billion), Afghanistan ($11 billion) and North Korea ($10 billion), as well as $20 billion in debts owed by several African countries.

In total, Russia has forgiven more than $100 billion in debt owed by developing countries over the past decade.

[goldenequity]

see original for source links

Countdown To War On Venezuela - Step II: Trump Imposes More Sanctions

A month ago we warned of the upcoming war on Venezuela.
Such a war could blow up huge in many nations of the region.

The U.S. trained and financed opposition has tried to create violent chaos in the streets
but failed to gain traction with the majority of the people.
The only support it has inside the country is from the richer bourgeois in the major cities
which despises the government's social justice program.
Workers and farmers are better off under the social-democratic policies of first Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro.
The coup attempt as step one of a U.S. takeover of Venezuela has failed.

Last month a new constitutional assembly was voted in and it is ready to defend the state.
The opposition boycotted the election to the assembly but is now complaining that it has no seats in it.
One of the assemblies first moves was to fire the renegade General Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz.
She had condemned the government for its resistance to the coup attempts.
She now has fled the country together with her husband.
The Miami Herald admits that she is on the U.S. payroll:

Ortega, a longtime government insider who became chief prosecutor in 2007,
is likely safeguarding some of the administration’s most damning legal secrets.
And she’s thought to be working with U.S. law enforcement
at a time when Washington is ratcheting up sanctions on Caracas.

Word is that Ortega's husband was blackmailed by the U.S. after he was involved in large illegal transactions.

U.S. President Trump threatened to use military force should the dully elected President Maduro not give up his position.
The CIA head Pompeo recently visited countries neighboring Venezuela
"trying to help them understand the things they might do".
Did he suggest weapon supplies to some proxy forces or an outright invasion?

Today the Trump administration imposed severe sanctions on Venezuela:

The sanctions Trump signed by executive order prohibit financial institutions
from providing new money to the government or state oil company PDVSA.
It would also restrict PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela
as well as ban trading in two bonds the government recently issued
to circumvent its increasing isolation from western financial markets.

Venezuela was prepared for at least some of these sanctions.
A few moth ago the Russian oil giant Rosneft acquired a share of PDVSA
and at least some oil sales are routed through that company:

Russian oil firm Rosneft has struck deals with several buyers
for almost its entire quota of Venezuelan crude for the remainder of the year,
traders told Reuters on Wednesday, the first time it has conducted such a large sale of the OPEC member’s oil.
...
Venezuela's oil deliveries to the United States have declined in recent years
amid falling production, commercial issues, and sanctions on Venezuelan officials.

The White House statement calls Maduro a "dictator" and his Presidency "illegitimate".
Both descriptions are laughable.
Maduro was elected in free and fair elections.
The former U.S. president Jimmy Carter called the election system in Venezuela the best in the world.
The new sanctions will likely increase the support for the current government.

The White House hinted at further economic measures:

In a call to brief reporters on the measures, the [senior Trump] official said
the United States has significant influence over Venezuela's economy
but does not want to wield it in an irresponsible manner
that could further burden the already-struggling Venezuelan people.

Venezuela will now have some troubling times.
But unless the U.S. launches an outright military attack on the country
-by proxy of its neighbors, through mercenaries or by itself-
the country will easily survive the unjust onslaught.

With 300 billion barrels the proven oil-reserves of Venezuela are the largest of the world.
They are the reason why the U.S. wants to subjugate the country.
But neither Russia nor China nor anyone else wants to see those reserves under U.S. control.

[goldenequity]

Foreign Affairs Minister of Venezuela Jorge Arreaza
presser following the meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.