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Basketcase Economy To Creditor In One Generation?


I had to re-read this today, I just couldn't believe it. Brazil has erased all of its debt? No way!

Yes way, says Morgan Stanley's Steven S. Roach:

Brazil, now the poster child of external debt reduction, is on a trajectory to eliminate its foreign indebtedness altogether within the next month or two -- an amazing transformation from the angst of January 2003, when the country’s net external indebtedness stood at $64 billion.

Are we witnessing a multigenerational wealth transfer from "developed economies" to "developing economies?" A reversion to the pre-colonial mean?


Sean-Paul Kelley June 16, 2006 - 10:51pm
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Same story with Russia

Amazing turnaround from virtual bankruptcy to zero debt in about a decade.

From http://www.capitallinkrussia.com/news/20060609185451.html:

Finance minister anticipates no difficulties in Paris Club talks
06/09/06

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin does not expect any difficulties in Russia's paying off its debt to the Paris Club, as he told journalists in St. Petersburg today. Earlier, a source in the Finance Ministry said that Russia's negotiations with the Paris Club for early repayment of national debt had been scheduled for June 15, 2006. As reported earlier, on April 27 President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready to pay off all of its debt to the Paris Club, "a little more" than $23bn of the former Soviet Union's debt, according to the finance minister.

A story that's gotten too little play in the US, in my opinion.

Petronius June 17, 2006 - 11:38am
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sigh. it'd be so nice if we

sigh. it'd be so nice if we had that kind of discipline. i guess we're going to finally pay for decades of being rich at the expense of poor brown people.

chicago dyke June 18, 2006 - 9:33pm
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