I understand what you’re saying, but if it’s OK for PR to get away with such debt, why don’t we let everyone who lives way past their means just get a free pass?
The USSR went through in in our recent lifetime.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but wasn't one of the conditions of the modern Russian Federation keeping the USSR's seat(s) at the table (UN, etc.) that they would assume the entire Soviet debt? I'm living in Russia at the moment, and I remember reading something earlier this summer that the last of some big chunk of Soviet debt was just paid off.