U.S. foreign debt

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Sep 25 11:45:47 PDT 1999


Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


> > Query: Is it not at least possible that such a colossus can for an
> > indefinite
> > period of time simply refuse to be "cut off"? The IMF grip on various
> > third-world nations is not all that separate from the military weakness
> > of those nations. Most discussions of the Russian economic distress
> > sooner or later get around to mentioning all those atomic weapons
> > under Russian control.
> >
> > Or looked at another way: if some banks are "too big to let fail," what
> > about a nation being "too big to foreclose on"?
>
>Most well formulated question, Carroll. I wish I had put it so starkly in
>some other exchanges I was having elsewhere.

U.S. military and political power puts a limit on how much we could be foreclosed upon, but still the country could suffer a capital outflow and be powerless to do anything about it except raise interest rates.

Russia is a wreck, so I'm not sure just what all those bombs have done for it.

Doug



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